NJE

According to what I believe is a trustworthy source on social media, this is the new Flea American Artist series active bass. As lots of us commented a while ago, it’s the signature bass we thought fender should have released. No news on preamp and pickup but is looking good.

The last few times I sent instruments and cabs I used a company called P4D who act as broker service. I went through the order, checked extra insurance and then actually picked up the phone and spoke to a really nice lady in the office to double check that the items I was sending were not in any way prohibited and there could be no excuses made for not covering the instrument or cab. I was assured and had an email to confirm the couriers would insure to the full value, provided that the items were packaged well. Everything I sell goes in a hard case where possible with bubble wrap and then wrapped in heavy card. If I don't have a hard case I get the factory packaging for a similar sized instrument and send in that. Then I take photos of every stage of packing so that if anything happens I can bombard the courier/broker with how well it was packed. I had one incident where a cab had been dropped hard and damaged it. I wrote to P4D straight away with pictures of packing and damage and explained the only way the damage could have been caused. It was dealt with in a couple of days and I got the full price I insured the cab for no questions asked. Moral of the story...if in doubt ring the courier and check its covered and get written confirmation and the name of whoever you spoke to, sorted!

I seem to have pretty bad body chemistry for strings and have tried a few brands to see what lasts and sounds good. I can only comment on Nickel strings though. Elixirs have been my choice but if you aren’t after coated, probably the best two sets I can recommend are the D’Addario NYXL and the Dunlop Super Brights which did really well considering there is no claim they last longer than any other string. Apart from that everything else I have tried just doesn’t last.

I am not a huge fan of chordal/jazzy solo bass type playing, but I have a lot of time for Janek Gwizdala as a person and musician. I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea and some folks don’t like the personal aspect of some of his videos, but I really like watching his videos on YouTube and find him a really inspiring person. He seems to have a ridiculous work ethic with his training, practicing, vlog editing and writing books, it’s truly inspiring to me. I wish I had 1/10 of his drive and focus.

I had a rehearsal yesterday and our guitarist said he had bought the flagship Helix board to try instead of his pedal board and valve amp. He went straight to PA (we all go through FOH live) and it was incredibly good with none of the stress of mic’ing up amps and noisy pedal clicks etc. For me it is an excellent live solution and if you read /watch interviews with bands most of them will say the same about Fractal/positive grid/kemper. There isn’t enough difference live to warrant the pedal boards, and big expensive valve amps that need maintenance and care. I think there will always be the pureists, and I love a valve amp as much as the next guy, but in the gigging world I think the nuances of the analog kit is lost.

There lies my problem, PJ basses with thick necks are slim on the ground. I think there are only a couple of models Fender have ever done. I stupidly didn’t buy a well priced Hot Rod Precision a year or so ago, and have only seen one since. I think that would be the cheapest way of getting what I want. I think as and when I have the money it will need to be a custom build or mod a standard Precision.

I think I have had 3 proper precision’s and 1 Yamaha with a P bass pickup and I think I am still waiting for that epiphanal moment. I happily gigged a USA precision for years as a teenager and then went through a squier classic vibe and vintage modifies in recent years but thy just don’t stick. It’s something to do with my right hand position when I play and the lack of ‘tightness’ from a bridge pickup. I think a PJ is my ultimate bass because I love the massive fat 50’s/60’s necks.

Actually it has inspired me to dig out some books and get my chops back up to speed. As a down side it has also inspired me to tell my band to buck their ideas up 😄

I have just been delving a little deeper into some of these bands, and it actually makes me a little sad that I am not in a band that good, can’t find musicians that good, and that I am not that good of a bass player.

Love these guys and associated bands, you should check out Pomplamoose too:

I use Flickr for work, I think it works really well.

As others have said, there are a lot of fakes out there and its worth looking at Elixirs new packaging as I remember something about the new design being harder to copy? If they turn out to be genuine Elixirs, give them a call or an email, if there is a fault somewhere they need to know about it to rectify it, and judging by my experience with them, they are a friendly bunch, active on here, and I am sure they will want to help remedy any problems you have. I have to say I have not tried any other coated strings, I love Elixir strings and don't want to risk a good chunk of money on another set to find I don't like them. Saying that, D'Addario NYXL strings are very good for non coated strings, I have had a huge amount of use out of them and my body chemistry destroys regular strings at an alarming rate.

I would have to say probably not. My band is pretty good but I am incredibly picky and if I was watching us I would tear us apart musically for not being as good as a top notch professional band, even though it would be a fairly unfair comparison.

Everyone has their own opinions on conditioning fret-boards and I don't want to disrespect anyone else, but I have avoided lemon oil for a while now after reading a few articles about it not being great for the wood. I have been using Music Nomad F-One oil and think it is brilliant, it makes my fret-board look amazing and doesn't dry out anywhere near as quick as lemon oil used to. Just look at the bottom of the page to see the luthiers using it now: https://www.musicnomadcare.com/Products/Fretboard-F-ONE-Oil-2-oz/

From my humble observations and what I hear from people, venues don’t want space taken up with a full band and large speakers/amps, and they don’t want the deafening volume that a large amount of amateur bands seem to want to play at. Sadly in nice bars/clubs a full band is a bit too much for a lot of punters, but they can tolerate a quiet innofensive acoustic duo who just play ‘background noise’. There is a nice bar in the nearest town to me and they have live music a few nights a week. An acquaintance goes there fairly often with work colleagues etc as the food and drink is good, and overheard him say as soon as the local blues/rock/cover band of choice fire up for the night they all get out as soon as possible. I think a lot of the time people just don’t want to hear another band playing the same old dross or murdering modern pop tunes in their local. I’m guilty, I play in a covers band and despite being pretty good (IMO) I would probably avoid a bar with us or anyone else playing 😂

Best one for me was when I went to one of the London guitar shows, 2007 I think. MarkBass were relatively new I think or at least new to me, and I stumbled onto their stall. I was interested and they pushed me to go and plug in and I was given the demonstrators GB Spitfire 4 String. I played a bit and then just stopped because I could not get over how incredible the neck was on it and how beautifully it played and felt. That has been the benchmark for me quality and neck wise ever since and it has seen off a number very high end American boutique basses that paled in comparison. No chance of owning that one but I came close a few years ago to another spitfire which I nearly bought but it had preamp issues (it was secondhand). An honourable mention should also go to a white Nordy VJ5 I played at Bass Direct years ago. I tried so many basses and that one stood out. I was with my now wife at the time and when we left with the gig bag I wanted she looked a bit quiet. I asked what was wrong and she said “I thought we were going to buy it”. I said I didn’t have anywhere near the money but she said “we could have sorted something out, but the moment has gone now” 😢

A great gig for me is an engaged receptive crowd that dances most of the night, in a really nice venue with a decent amount of space for the band, and lot of applause and a nice chunk of cash at the end of the night. Extra cherries on the cake but not essential would be, some free soft drinks for the band and an invitation to the buffet if it’s that kind of event.

I believe Morten Ehlers at Bass Buddha is had the odd Stenback in, and might know more about how to get hold of one. From what I have heard and read, the waiting list for Stenback basses is so high that he basically doesn’t need to advertise or do any of the conventional marketing. What a superb position to be in as a luthier. edit: the Stenback Instagram account is fairly active with photos of basses, nothing particularly new but regular posts.

I completely agree, I think Roger comes across really passionate and quality focussed when he is interviewed. Apart from the new singlecut model, he hasn’t mucked around with his formula for basses in years, relying on jut making high quality versatile instruments. The wording used around the Metro Express basses is interesting. They challenged the top factory in Japan to see if they could make a bass good enough. Roger hasn’t been around as long as he has by making bad choices and poor quality instruments. edit: just to add, I am no Sadowsky fan boy, I have played a few and didn’t really get on with the sound, but everyone says it’s in a band they come alive. However the quality on all of them was just incredible.

Sadowsky are certainly entering a fairly crowded area at that price point, especially if you open that up to what you can get secondhand for that kind of money. The Sadowsky is a very different beast to the American original Fender and I would be as bold as to say that as good as Sandberg are, the Sadowsky name carries a bit more weight and pedigree for a lot of bass players. I would be very surprised if there is a noticeable difference in sound between the Metros and the new Express models. There may be some noticeable differences in fretwork and feel of the neck but I would go out on a limb and say it won’t be worth the approx £700 difference between models. So where is the appeal in the existing Metro range? I guess the same appeal that makes folks buy any variety of expensive instrument, because they have the money and are happy to spend that much. Also there is a certain level of exclusivity attached to it and a certain level of romanticism that the Metros are crafted in small batches by fine craftsmen in japan and not made in some generic factory that churns out models for almost every other guitar and bass company out there. It will be really interesting to see the first lot of real world reviews come in.

Sennheiser for me and the rest of the band for vocals. My last three bands all used Shure 58’s or Beta 58a and I always wanted to use my Sennheiser. I got the usual “you want to use an SM58, best microphones around, industry standard” so much I bought a 58 to keep them happy. Slowly after me sneaking the Sennheiser in at gigs, they all heard how much more defined it was they all gradually shifted over to Sennheiser too. They aren’t for everyone but I have converted a lot of folks just by them hearing mine in a live environment.

I have had a set of D’Addario NYXL strings on a bass for quite a while now and they have just about outlasted every other non coated string I have ever used and I am very impressed with them. Dunlop Super Brights were really good too, and they weren’t expensive. Love Ernie Balls but my sweat kills them quickly but they do boil up well. Best all round for value, lasting tone, quality of tone and feel under the fingers is no doubt Elixirs. I had one set on 18 months of solid sweaty gigging and rehearsals and to be honest they didn’t need changing when I took them off my main bass and are in fact still working nicely on my backup nearly 30 months later.

I nearly posted that winery dogs video earlier but for a slightly different reason. There is no doubting that Mr Sheehan can rip it up and is a phenomenal bass player and seems like a top all round guy, actually I met him once and he was a lovely chap, forgot that... Anyway I am in the minority it seems, but I think part of being a great musician is recognising when to manipulate your sound to create something that sits well with the song. The Winery Dogs video, for me in my humble and insignificant opinion, is an example of how his signature sound, shouldn't just be dumped into every musical situation and ruins an amazing song and performance. in this case its all of the harmonics and fret noise, its not even about the level of distortion.

I was doing a run of Christmas gigs a year ago and as we got closer to Christmas day, the audiences who were out on Christmas parties got more out of control and drunk. During the last gig I see a couple of robust drunk individuals get more and more animated on the dance floor and get closer and closer to the band. I was doing lead vocal and all of a sudden out of the dark, a lady comes flying towards me backwards. She hits the monitors, flies backwards over it and hits the floor hard. Her head then hits my mic stand, my nice robust Sennheiser mic hits me on my top lip and teeth, glances off my face and then hits the bass drum and cymbal and my mic flies out of the stand and lands in my drummers lap. I then have a bleeding swollen lip and dented microphone for the rest of the gig. Luckily the lady was so completely hammered and she felt nothing, not even any embarrassment, so no real harm done, but it was pretty funny.

I cant claim this story as my own, but it happened many years ago and the drummer in my old band was involved. He was playing in a band with two brothers who sang and played guitar, a bit like the Everley Brothers and at some point pre gig they had fallen out. I think there was some alcohol involved but as the night went on, they started bickering about what to play until it got to the point where they were almost at each others throats. They both demanded that my old drummer count in and play the different song each brother wanted to play or he would be booted out of the band. I believe the drummer walked off stage after they started fighting each other.