Stub Mandrel

The bassist in my brother's band fills the gap with overdrive. I like a song to have dynamics and sometimes leave space and sometimes fill it by getting busier.

Yes, I've built it up six coats over six days, now on sixth day of waiting for it all to fully cure, it's made it a fair bit darker. I'm going to use a satin microcrystalline wax for protection. Not gloss as I've left the small natural voids etc. in the wood.

What I like about this is the way you can blend it into a fully gated sound (think Boulevard of Broken Dreams).

Yes, although that makes them sound like Clown Vomit. Red, orange and yellow before adding purple on the sides/just around the very edges

You are Jon Anderson and I Claim My Five Pounds 🙂

Pfft. I know what you are doing... siphoning off good honest peoples' TLRTs and recycling them into basses. I've been impressed by a sample set of Chestnut stain. About two bodies worth in each sample bottle.

Does anyone here use flats on a 6-string guitar? My first electric came with a set on it around '79, I haven't played them since.

It's very much a question of personal taste. I'm averse to random pointy bits.

No more coats since Friday and after five days in the warm it's finally stopping feeling quite so 'waxy'. I'm starting to realise tung oil != tru-oil. It isn't building up, it just keeps soaking in. Note this is pure tung oil, not a modified one. It looks good at the moment, but is unprotected and the finish is uneven as in some bits matt, some shiny, most in-between. I also worry it's getting a little darker with each coat. I think I'll park the slurry idea and instead go for applying a coat of microcrystalline clear satin wax or two, once it feels completely unsticky, which I guess will be a couple of days now as most of it feels OK. I think a high gloss would highlight imperfections and the holes in the timber.

Nice looking timber. wait... another one???

Placeholder to remind me to enter!

I didn't think you could get much stupider than G&L headstocks (eBay specials excepted).

I either have the touch of an angel or I don't play it often enough...

Perhaps, but a consequence of having many basses is defending that position. Nothing happens in isolation. Excuse me while I strangle the cat (not because it consumes too many resources, although the environmental impact of cat litter is a big worry to me) but because she refuses to stop crying to come in the room then crying to get out again.

Stuff that 🙂 My fretless gets roundwound elites or rotos whether it likes it or not.

What about internet usage? Every comment (like this one) uses resources.

Precision Bass - Penis on fire! Cred!

As an environmentalist, the logical end-point of such discussions is that the planet would be better off if we were all dead. One philosophical way to approach the issue is 'what number of basses maximises the well being of current and future generations' ? This brings in things like the joy brought to you and others by owning basses and possibility that owning them stops you doing something more (or less) sustainable instead. I suspect that if everybody had a creative hobby, like making music, the world would be a better place now and in the future.

Be fair, it may be down to covid.

Hmmm. If he's top loud, and you can still be heard clearly, doesn't that mean you are too loud as well?

It's true. Even my laundry basket is a luxury. I suppose this is an argument in favour of flatwound strings. More seriously, I guess basses themselves are relatively modest in their environmental impact compared to most hobbies, particularly if they are made out of genuinely sustainably sourced timber. Certainly, you would need a lot of basses to be the equivalent of a second car.

12 because 13 is unlucky. TBH I do find myself wondering if I need a Stingray. Or an EB0.

We do that in the covers band. It's amazing how easy it is to be wrong about something you were certain of even with a simple song, and also how it kills arguments stone dead. Mind you, last Sunday "There's no piano, you should be playing the Hammond organ part" morphed into "Can you split the keyboard three ways and play right and left piano and the organ part?"

This. Both my bands (one is gigging for the first time in a fortnight, the other has gigged a couple of times) have flexible approaches. The guitarist in the blues band could have huge semaphore flags on his back, he's that good at telegraphing the changes. The covers band want the vocalist to adapt to the audience reaction, so we've agreed a combination of hand signals and vocal cues. What is out of order is just randomly changing without signals or consideration. If it goes fubar now, you won't be gigging before 2025, unless the band decide to get serious.