Stub Mandrel

I always used swiss files and still do if I have to cut a nut from scratch. The best thing for finishing the bottom of thr slot is a scalpel, you can scrape off tiny amounts and change the angle/profile really easily.

.. or 36" scale basses

It's increasingly likely I will be in South Wales when this happens so I will definitely try and get along. Will also do the Midlands bash!

You slappadabass, we slappadabassplayer.

I've never had any other nail issues. Apparently delaminatin of both finger and toenails without external cause can be a sign of iron deficiency, which would quite feasibly have been the issue.

That wee scratch/crack is repairable. http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/Technique/Finish/Lacquer/CheckRepair/checkfill.html

There was a whole thread on this a while back. I have a dot at fret one, and find dot between the fret ones really horrible to play, but most people like whatever they learnt on. It must be cheaper to make fretless necks by just leaving the frets off without having to set up for dots in different places.

Also included original 4 string nut and tailpiece and a g-string...

After I left uni I didn't eat very well for several months. My fingernails all fell off, followed a few weeks later by my toenails. No other apprent effects but I decided not to scrimp on food after that.

New baby:

None more Black'n'Decker!

Means you have to download a plug-in to simulate mike-cupping...

It's taken 60 years but I think the Jazz has finally knocked the precision off its perch as the 'default bass'. Lots of sounds to discover with those controls. I like either pickup on full with the other just up a touch.

Crikey... I've just finished a Harley Benton kit and the tools I used were a fretsaw, sanding blocks, wet and dry paper in many grades, two screwdrivers and a ball end 5mm allen key as the one in the kit was no good for adjusting the truss rod with strings on. Oh, and a scalpel for he nut, I find you can scrape off in a more controlled manner than using files and keep the slot profile. A tiny mark on the body showed the neck had been put on with the neck plate in position, so looks like they do some basic QC. The neck is straight as a die and I found a few frets (the highest on the D) that may need a light dressing if I drop the action on that string. You are unlikely to need to do any major work so a straight edge and a cheap set of needle files shoudl cover any remedial work.

Pah. You think valves are woe. I'm one of those poor sods who insists on playing an old Trace Elliot. Transistor sound and valve weight combined...

Hang in there Stew, as someone whose been lucky enough to meet you, I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

I've seen your poster in Pirate Studios.

My 'fendery ones'.

If you search "<song name> bass tab" or "<song name> bass cover" you might find some helpful stuff, but be aware that a lot of tabs are full of errors, and some are very badly laid out. so look at a few and find one you are comfortable with. It's worth watching a Sabbath live video and getting an idea of what Geezer is playing - how busy he is(n't) and where on the neck (about 5/7 fret IIRC). Listen to the song and try to hear what the bass is really doing, not what you thought it was doing. Tab can be great for understanding fills. When learning, start slow and build up. Concentrate on getting the notes of each part right, then getting the right rhythm, then getting up to speed. Don't be ashamed to just play the root notes without any fills to help you learn the changes. Try to hear how your bass blends with the music when you are in time and in tune. If you start making repeated mistakes, take a break so that you don't 'practice the errors'

well.... oh go on then 😉

Well, Reaper was a good bloody brilliant suggestion. To explain, our drummer works with about three bands, he did a lockdown version of Schools out with a band of teenagers. In under half an hour I managed to synch the drum track to their track as a guide, including snipping out the mis-timed first crash and move it to the right place. Then I managed to record myself and play it back. Need to polish it a bit, but everything working now.

Amazing how the colour changes under different light. Very definite blue under LEDs. Very pale under fluorescent, photographing with a greenish cast. Some review type thoughts... Neck is pretty decent, the fretboard is effectively black, like ebony with more grain, does not look like rosewood at all. I think it looks really distinctive. Benefits from oiling. I didn't lacquer the back of the neck, it comes with a satin/matt finish that is very nice. Would build confidence if they had a guide to which screw goes where, especially as there are enough scratchplate and tuning head screws that you could swap them over. For those unsure: The larger headed countersunk screws are for the scratchplate. The four very long screws are for the pickups, beware of screwing them right down as they could pop out the back of the body... put them in a few turns and adjust when the strings are on. The same screws for the bridge and strap buttons. Personally I think they are a bit short for strap buttons. String guide uses a scratchplate screw; I reckon if you used a spare bridge screw it could come out the back of the headstock. The tuning head screw drillings weren't very well positioned. I had to take great care tightening the screws and the heads are all at a very slight angle. Body wood isn't super hard, but much better than the eBay strat body blank I bought a year ago. If I was redoing the build I would put on a light layer of primer then sand down until it was just left in any depressions, then skim the body with fine filler then sand with fine wet and dry. Videos that show people putting on 3 very thin layers of lacquer are over optimistic. Do more than that. Yes it is worth waiting a week to finally sand and polish, but give yourself enough paint thickness to work at with confidence. Sanding needs to be really light t-cut will take out light marks so you don't need to sand aggressively. Double acting truss rod needed to be tightend up, probably by 32-3 turns so not a huge amount. I expect it to need revisiting a few times as the bass settles down. Setting up meant adjusting everything, including the nut (except the A-string intonation was spot on...) Nut was cut very high, this does need care and courage as it's the one adjustment that isn't reversible. Pickup screw holes weren't ideally positioned, tilting the two halves forward. When I reassemble I'll move them so they are level. Controls work fine, no buzzes. When I reassemble I will strip a longer section of the bridge earth wire to make the contact more definite, am worried it could slip out but don't want to strip it yet to make threading it back through easier. Would be nice if it was about an inch longer too... Tuning heads very stiff until oiled with a drop of 3 in 1, get better with use. Not the best ever but I don't think they need replacing. A neck wedge may be a good idea as the E-saddle is almost at the bottom and I reckon I could drop it buy up to half a mm or more. Some of the scratchplate screwholes were way off, one or two not even visible. I put all the good ones in first, then fitted the other screws direct into the wood without a hole.

Having a bit of a crap few days, so to cheer myself up I've built it up. I can live with the grain showing on front and back (sides are great!) but the recoat on the front isn't hard enough to take a full shine yet, so in five days or so I need to strip it again and t-cut. Nut needed a fair bit of scraping with a scalpel. Wasn't hard to set up. Will fit some different bits - got a Fender TBX I can fit and maybe some better knobs. Might also tilt the neck to get the action down a bit more on A and E, is about 2mm but feels like it could be a tad lower. Otherwise, pretty good, Maybe need to look at the top three or four frets on the D string. Doesn't feel or sound like a £77 bass!

Abelton feels a lot like an AutoCAD product - expensive industry standard program, with an interface that is far from a standard windows one. A free entry-level version hobbled only in capacity so you invest lots of effort in learning to use it and this deters you from other less complex options when you need to go to something with greater capacity. I will download Reaper in a bit.

I was misled by the 'drag files here' dialogue in one of the views, I had to drag them into the other view. Took me an hour of deleting, reloading and random clicking before I got the two tracks the same length, I cnan't understand why it randomly stretches them. It may be autodetecting BPM, one time it loaded the drum track and made it longer than the other track, I deleted it and loaded again and it made it shorter. It also put reverb and delay on everything which was horrible. Aligning was OK once I had two tracks at same tempo and no reverb/delay. I've figured out how to record from my Focusrite scarlett. It takes me about ten minutes after recording to find a way of playing back. Every time I stop a recording and delete my fail it changes all the monitor settings. @BigRedX I think you are 100% right! All I can say is these dance mixers have more respect from me now... My brother suggests I get a digital multitrack that will work like my old 4-track cassette.