Stub Mandrel

It's good we don't like all the same things 🙂

I think Jack's suggestion was to use a looper to save you having to play it all the way through. I'd try using a lot of distortion (it sounds like a 'square wave' is the starting point) but with the tone rolled right back and perhaps some very slow flange or chorus at a low level, which will help stop it from getting too monotonous.

You don't want to try that in the UK! 🌩️☠️🌩️

The problem with using pedals to generate a rhythm is that drummers get upset, as I found when using a tremelo pedal to excatly duplicate the sound of Boulevard of broken dreams. (Echo is better for the rythym as you can get it near enough and 'reset' at the start of each bar, but then it spills over the chord changes).

TSK!

Well I have both and I know which I prefer. 🙂

Works best with ginger nuts.

Not if you are playing darts 🙂

While I feel that the headstock is not pretty, it is far from the only ugly one. And remember the hideous G&L headstock is one of Leo's so he didn't get it right every time... Although the Bite design might put some people off, there are a few things stopping a change: Inertia. The impact of 'validating' the criticisms, especially when there are clearly some customers who are happy with it. The sort of people who spend hours picking apart their design and business model probably aren't their target audience. Dare I say they might be seeking younger and more adventurous musicians who want a cost-effective route to a 'custom' bass (and I would argue they are more 'custom' that Fender CS basses which are really 'limited editions' not (potentially) unique to the customer ones). Cost of a new design. Existing stock. It's quite brave - compare Ashdown being equally bashed about for their similarly priced basses being even closer copies, is it possible to win? Upsetting early adopters who may in future show brand loyalty. Emotional investment, especially if one of the owners of the brand invented it. It has achieved it's main functions - being recognisable, memorable and (unlike most) actually relevant by the link to the brand name (in twenty years, if I'm still around) we will still be saying 'do you remember Bite headstocks!) With all that lined up, assuming that they are achieving the sort of sales levels their business plan projected it could be quite brave to change horses midstream. That said in time, a revised or alternative design (perhaps one that makes a 'fender-like' shape by taking the bite out of the bottom) may be used to extend sales. All in all, although that headstock isn't to my taste, I wish them luck because any diversity in the market is a good thing.

So it's a compensation for badly cut nuts 🤩

Blimey, you have darts in the USA? I would never have thought!

Are you going to go for a D or Eb neck? 🤣

In my mid thirties I was in a band whose BL wrote really good songs, the sort that really could have done something. When I joined he'd written many of the bass lines and they were the sort of thing I enjoyed learning and playing, interesting but not overwrought. I was secretly convinced we were all too old to make it in a world of 'bright young things'. I left when I took on a new job with a lot of responsibilities; I offered to help a new bass player into the role but they never got in touch. I fear my leaving may have kyboshed the band, and I still wonder what we could have done if I'd stayed.

Never quite figured this angst about break angles. Why do we need a greater angle at the nut than we get when we fret strings? I think those who worry about this should be force to play bass lutes.

I may be able to be in South Wales that weekend; is anyone playing a gig nearby on the 4th or 5th to make a mini-break of it?

I couldn't resist a foot up on the monitor last Saturday 🙂

Dang, I'm all TRLT'd out so take this s a like 👍

From Saturday Night:

On drywall, there are various different fixings which you can use. I've actually found that the ones which are like little cast spirals with teeth on the end are remarkably secure and plenty to support a bass*. Just follow instructions. Google 'drywall fixings' for inspiration. Any decent supplier's versions will have a weight rating. I have kitchen wall cabinets that have been hanging for ~15 years on the spring toggle type. They are suitable for suspending bassists, let along basses... *Your mileage my vary, but remember typical bass hangers suffer a lot less leverage than the brackets in the video

Ah, we have a difference in perspective. Your wording " this is because they're wired in parallel to one output jack. " implied to me that you meant they are wired so that even with one pickup wound right off they both affect the other pickup (i.e. side by side directly across the output jack - which would clearly make two tone controls redundant). Even if that's not what you meant others could easily read it as meaning that.

Fascinating build, and I can see the Geiger connection! On magnets for pickups, I'd be tempted to try a plain mild steel bar with a 5mm neodymium magnet on top. Why? I've fitted magnets like that to three Squier jazz pickups and it makes them ridiculously hot, you even have to move them away from the strings as otherwise they make them intermodulate (one string drives the others and they beat!)

Yes, but you only need to do this with ONE volume control. By having both vols on max, you do then have the 'each tone is effectively a master' situation, but with one rolled right off it's then an analogue of a standard Jazz. The important bit that's being missed is that when one pup is on and the other off the two tones controls are independent. You stated: I suspect you meant to add 'when both pickups are at max volume' to the end of that bit, but I thought it was important to set the record straight.