NJE

I don’t know if I am losing the plot and my eyes playing tricks on me, but has anyone else noticed that the control plates on the 76 Ltd edition and 70s Stingrays seem to be weirdly positioned? Most of the current and pre-EB basses I have seen have the control plate following the lower contour quite evenly/equally, I presume the plate was designed to follow the shape. However the new ones seem to tilt up to almost touch the pickguard and seem wonky. I love the spec of both but this just messes with my brain, I can’t un-see it. I know there are a billion more important things to concern myself with but I can’t see why it was done? Black one is a new 70s reissue and the Natural is a pre-EB.

It was a sunburst

I had a bit of moment with a 77 Stingray yesterday, and after bit of playing I was really struck by how small/low the frets were. I don’t think it was a case of them just being ground down so did some googling and early Stingrays did apparently have smaller vintage frets. Do any of the knowledgable Stingray experts out there know when they shifted to the larger frets?

I finally had my earplug moulds done yesterday at the Guitar Show in Birmingham. It was nice to see the colour options in person and talk things through with ACS team before ordering. It was so simple, and very tranquil when your ears are full of foam/gel! Gone for some transparent sparkly grey ones, and I can’t wait to give them a spin at practice and gigs.

Visited today with my boy, the deciding factor was ACS being there, so I had my custom earplugs done as well. Some really good stuff there and a fun afternoon wandering around. My son came back with so many stickers and plectrums, but other than the freebies the highlights were: 1. Vintage Bass Room - some really lovely gear and it was nice having a wee chat. I was very taken with the Wilcock Long Scale, that nearly got me, it was just a lovely sounding and playing bass and top quality build. I was thinking about it for a few hours. 2. I played the prototype far east made Dingwall SP-1 PJ 5 string. Not much of a 5 string player these days but what a bass. Played beautifully, build was superb and sounded great with a nice 4 way pickup selector. Might be in trouble if the production model 4 strings are that good. 3. Absolute Music had a 77 Stingray that just floored me. I very nearly called the wife to warn her it was coming home but did resist even after a second visit. I think that bass might haunt my dreams and I’m still thinking about it. 4. Realising that I know what I like and what I need. I wasn’t tempted by much gear, most of what I tried was superb quality and sounded great (Spector Euro comes to mind) but it wasn’t for me and the GAS remained low. On the whole it was a great show for not much money and I will be going back next year. Only downside for me was the noise, but the quiet time came around quickly. I actually found the bass room worst of all, a mix of heavy overdrive pick playing and frantic slap at the same time can drive you potty! It made it hard to try a few things but almost everyone had headphone rigs which was great.

I have been looking at Gator gig bags and couldn’t work out what the difference was between the Transit and the Pro Go X as gear4music have both at different prices. Thank you for clarifying.

We have just gone up from a 7 piece to an 8 piece 🤣

I just jam notes and lyrics in a pdf and put the pages in order of the set, works a treat.

I had a 5 string 36” scale Progress and the reach on the neck didn’t bother me at all, however I just couldn’t get on with the tension on the D and G strings. They felt overly tight to me and didnt sound right for what I was playing, after coming from 34” scale. Would have been superb for lower tunings though.

These look interesting….

With all the stuff that has gone wrong at gigs over the years I take spares of most things apart from an amp (that’s more down to lack of funding though), plus I can always go through monitors and front of house at a push. Spare cables, strings, bass, power leads, and I have multi tools, and batteries in various pockets of bags as well. Comes in handy, last gig for some reason, 3 mic stands all needed tightening at various points and I had a multi tool for the job when no one could find a screwdriver. A good friend of mine plays in a band and they all go in ears and no backline. At some big festivals in front of crowds their Neural Pedals have gone down, DIs broken, guitars gone haywire etc. They are now taking multiples of everything.

Hate is a bit of a strong feeling towards an inanimate object, but it was good click bait to get me in here 😄 I had an American Standard Jazz Bass for a short while, it was horrible. Heavy, lifeless, no resonance, badly built, neck felt cheap…it was just an absolute lemon. It was a real shame as I had an American Standard Precision when I was in my late teens and loved it.

Mary Scully has done a lot of film scores, have a Google. One of my very oldest and closest friends does a lot of tv, radio and film work and has contributed to a lot of huge Hollywood films over the past 10 years. He works remotely from his small home studio, there is no studio time on those kinds of projects unless it’s for big orchestration. He’s not well known, no endorsements etc, and I would imagine a lot of the bass work is done by similar types of people.

Ben Epstein is a superb player and been in various TV house bands I believe, most notably The Voice band. I think he played bass on the latest Snow Patrol album and is their touring bass player now.

Based on my past experience with all of the brands, I wouldn’t say the Squier or Harley Benton would be much of an upgrade, they would just be a different vibe/sound. I have a Harley Benton Jazz bass and it’s a solid bass and very playable after some tweaking. Had a few Squiers and they have all been great as well, certainly more consistent than lower end Mexican made fenders. I think you would do better long term with a Squier, recognisable brand and easier to sell when you want to upgrade again.

Bought a P bass yesterday, so I’m in! Can I buy a strap?

Have you already tried the UK distributor Strings and Things? I ordered pickup covers from them a couple of years ago and they were really helpful.

What colours did everyone go for? I’m currently deliberating classic clear ones or something a bit more “jazzy”.

My wife works for the NHS and has these brilliant bags for the vast array of kit they need to carry. One of the zips broke so she got a new one and I snapped up the old one, it’s bloody amazing!

Get Guy Pratts book, my bass and other animals. If you have a much bigger budget, get Geddy Lees big book of bass.

I love Shaun, seems like a genuinely nice human with some incredible insights into playing. There was a lovely bit in this latest interview where he was saying that he just wants to be involved in great music and that he wasn’t as expensive as people thought.

It’s a Contemporary J Series. They are custom made so it’s just got custom pickup setup by the looks of it.

I used to have a very big chip on my shoulder about this song after playing it for so many years. I vowed after finishing in a previous band I wouldn’t play it again. My current band were asked to play it as a request at a wedding as the bride and her friends love it, so we happily obliged and it has been in the set ever since. We do a good job of it I think, we have a great drummer and guitarist which makes a difference to giving it a good feel. Everyone has a sing along even drunk lads in their 20s when we play a pub, so I have learned to just roll with it and not take everything too seriously. I have no musical credibility, I’m in my 40s playing covers in pubs for £40 a night 😄.

I have been using Pages on IPad for all of my lyrics and also scribble down the odd chord structure. I just export to PDF and then open with Acrobat to scroll through full screen whilst playing. It’s easy to change the order of pages should the set change as well.

I used the 2x10 for a wedding gig a couple of weeks ago because my first 1x15 had issues. It was a big marquee and I play in a 7 piece with brass and it was fine for onstage monitoring across the stage but didn’t have enough low end to fill the space and I needed the PA support. It would probably be fine in the small pubs we play though. The 1x15 has a lot more oomph on its own but I haven’t gigged just that one yet. If you have PA I think you would be fine with just one for most small and medium gigs.