Aidan63

Thanks for posting this Rob, nice work, the whole book should keep you busy for months Obviously you could mix acoustic and amplified signals depending on how you record it for a best of both worlds sound Thanks for the demonstration of the Ibanez bass, I'm tempted by @Treegirl's one that is for salen at the moment but like many am skint for a month; also interesting to read you comment about the fingerboard markers distracting from the edge markers, but it will be useful for anyone looking at this bass

Steve pmd me about this with a link to this post and I replied to him after I'd opened the link which opened in another window not realising that I was replying to the post instead of the pm, and I couldn't offer an answer hence this odd post, hopefully someone will be able to help

I find the Pahoehoe strings do suit the solid body UBass but they are a bit one dimensional and stretch and stretch and stretch for ages and then once stable still stretch a bit; I did try the Pyramid steels on my 5 string but it couldn't take it as the US made model doesn't (certainly didn't) have a truss rod and the neck wanted to bend under the tension. The Kala SUB Ubasses do have truss rod (my 4 string does) so steel strings might work well on those, I just haven't tried them as the Pyramid strings had so much tension they marked the bridge which is only fairly low grade Rosewood and for what I do I actually find the standard strings fine. On my Tanglewood acoustic Ukebass I prefer the ThunderRed strings as thinner and better feel and tuning stability to the white ones, especially the Chinese supplied ones which may not be genuine Aquila. Magnus is a great UBassist so hopefully he will post up this thread as he is on this forum @basmagnus

Thanks, I must admit I was thinking of a couple of racing stripes straight down the grill or maybe across the corner like a Mustang, but should the stripes be blue or white ? So I left it black for now, easy enough to mod in the future.

Finally got some time and space to paint my cab and finish it off. It has been an interesting process for me and nice to do something different like working with wood and paint rather than gears and lumps of metal. Fortunately this warmer weather over the last few weeks has meant the workshop hasn't been too cold for the paint, curing times have been a little slower but with the water based paint it has worked okay, and I'm pretty happy with the finish. I found that as the roller became more soaked with paint (I just put it in a plastic bag between coats rather than clean it each time, as advised on the TuffCab instructions) it tended to skip a little so for the last two coats I used a second almost clean roller for finishing once I'd applied the paint with the heavily impregnated roller and that way I was able to get the subtle ripple effect with the slow and light technique, especially on the front edges which I couldn't do with the loaded roller. I chose TurboBlue for mine, partly because I like the colour, have a blue camper van and matching blue bass and partly because the unit I trade out of was one of the workshops that was used to build TurboSound PA cabinets in the 80's and early 90's, so it's a little bit of a homage/tribute to that era. Back in 1986/7 I was part of a PA system in Newcastle and we had a couple of Turbosound cabs to start with, they were great sounding, powerful and compact, but kept burning out drivers so we did change to Martin Audio after about 6 months, but I have fond memories of our first new build rig. Many thanks to Stevie for the ready painted grill it made finishing it off pretty easy I have briefly tried it with both a TC BH250 and a Hartke LH500 (new to me) and it's pretty impressive, very clear, sounds great at low volume but goes well loud without a problem retaining that clarity. Interestingly the TC gets louder with less 'volume' than the Hartke does and flat out they don't seem that much different despite their power difference, the TC seems to give a good bit more volume than expected into 8 ohms. Both amps are single volume types without a gain and master volume set up, both are class D output, the Hartke has a valve preamp which seems quite subtle upto about 6 and half then goes into full on heft mode.

Many thanks to Steve for selling me his attractively priced Hartke LH500, packing it well with a little help from his cat, and shipping it across to me in time for the new year and new cab, great comms, a pleasure to do business with

Bought a set of nicely priced Kent Armstrong PBass picks from Mike, easy and quick delivery even in the run up to Christmas, thank you 👍

Many thanks for nice bits and bobs beautifully and swiftly packaged and dispatched, top man

If anyone can get it from Manchester to me (mid Wales between Oswestry and Welshpool) I'll be coming to Bournemouth in about 10 or so days time

got a promo mail from Fender today, Roadworn Jazz $1125, Roadworn Precision $1025, so only a bit more than Vintera series

old school look, tidy work, enjoy

Geoff bought my VM Jazz which I offered him in response to his wanted ad, nice friendly comms, swift payment and great feedback, top man, I thank you, enjoy it

I tried contacting the current UK distributor about a just out of warranty double 4 and didn't get any response, it works but at reduced volume, I guess one half of power amp section has failed; didn't get much satisfaction with the shop that sold it to me either. I don't do FB otherwise I'd have been having a go at them both on there, seems like unless you call them out on social media many businesses don't care these days

Okay I have been getting on with my cab, 009, a few hours at a time when I can make time and space in the workshop It's a great kit, has gone together okay, the only real problem I had was the handle having holes almost in the right place was worse than not having any holes at all trying to line it up so handle was parallel with the face of the cab and then either opening up the holes or re-drilling them completely, anyway I tightened one handle screw when it wasn't lined up and ended up breaking a little bit of the plastic, ended up using a couple of coach screws at each end of the handle but will probably change to some counter sunk machine screws on final fit with nuts and washers, just need to find the right length in black Other than that my chiselling a channel for the speaking connector to sit in was a bit oversized and so I added a frame to the inside for extra support long term, glued and pinned it shouldn't come adrift One corner still not quite shaped to fit the corner protector and final fill and sand to do before painting, it will be a couple of weekends before it's finished I didn't have clamps long enough for clamping the top and bottom so resorted to weight to hold these in place while glue set - it would have been better with another 6 clamps really to be able to glue the 4 sides together all in one go - all the youtube videos of guitars and things being built show you can never have too many clamps

I fancy doing mine in TurboBlue - does anyone want to share a 2.5Kg tub of that colour, no 1Kg tubs to be had I can find. Would 800g be enough to do one cab ?

Love the Maple Fender closed tone thanks for posting

Hi Magnus I have your UBass book 😀 I won't be able to make the show unfortunately

My in was Fragile, so that still is my favourite and the line-up I think of as Yes, even though it probably isn't the best or the 'real' lineup but there's some good stuff on it and it works as a whole varied album

Scratchplate is black, contrast against the butterscotch blonde body and maple neck

anyone with plug in 'air freshner' is not to be trusted 😉

Where can you get the Status Hotwire Flatwounds from ? Google doesn't seem able to help, Status don't seem to list them except in short scale

I picked this up on Monday after a nice drive there and back over Snowdonia, it used to be @Beedster's https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/262287-fs-squier-classic-vibe-50s-precision-sd-pup-us-circuit-sold/?tab=comments#comment-2776167, as we know Chris has great taste in basses, especially Ps Previous owner hadn't used it a lot in the intervening period, hadn't cleaned it much if at all and I'm pretty certain it was wearing the same set of D'Addario strings that it had when sold last I spent a bit of time yesterday and this morning giving it a thorough clean and spot levelling the 8th fret which was causing a buzz on the A and D strings and set it up with a fresh set of flatwound Maruszczyk strings and wow, it is lovely, the neck adjusted to really flat and action to 2mm and the response across the strings is very even and the tone is just what I've been looking for, that sound that was in my head, that I'd been approaching with '57 on P style basses but not actually quite getting. I'm genuinely surprised at how good it is, even more surprised that none of the 22 who were watching it bid for it, I guess for once being in Wales counted in my favour, usually the nice basses are a long drive away and collection only, or overpriced or deeply flawed if delivery is included. The blue one that was listed and finished this week sold for a good bit more, though maybe had a better pickup in it, but this Seymour Duncan 1/4 pounder is good. It's really pretty without the scratchplate (included but no need to fit for me), 4 piece body really well done, I believe it is pine, anyway it is really nicely balanced, comfortable with the '54 contoured body, and the neck is just what you'd like from a P, 42mm nut and chunky enough, maybe not the fattest of the possible Fender profiles, single piece Maple with real rear fitted truss rod, and maybe there is something to be said for the tele shaped headstock in weight reduction which helps the balance Bit of a punt with Ebay, 3 hour round trip but quiet Welsh roads and the sun was shining, and a bit of work to make it nice but very definitely worth it 😀