Muzz

It's always the way, isn't it? Within 24 hours of me parping on elsewhere on here about how I don't like painted basses, this is the second one I've seen which makes me think I've spoken wayyyy too soon... 😐 Oh, and that board is fantastic, too...

It's like taking a new Ford out for a test drive, returning it and telling them it's not handling well because there's 10psi in the tyres, and them asking you for a deposit to pump the tyres up...they'd be out of business by the end of the month... Not that I've ever bought a new car. Or a new Fender, come to that... 🙁🙂

Ohhhh, that's far too sensible...I prefer a withering look, with perhaps a regretful shake of the head if they're not focusing sufficiently to register the look.... 🙂

I've mentioned this before, but we played a rugby club a few years ago, and our singist/guitard was using his iPad to control the PA, inears mix, etc, and a hammered girl came up to bellow in my ear (mid-song, naturally; these days I just point to my inears and shake my head sadly) 'Play some Abba!' This to three 50-year-old blokes doing a (fairly eclectic, I'll give her that) mix of acoustic/guitar-based songs*. Telling her we didn't know any was, of course, no use, because she pointed at the iPad and said 'Yes! You do! Play some Abba!'. Oh, and we don't have a set list, so that solves telling someone to fornicate off on that front. Any other requests get 'Maybe at the end', which works a treat; either they've moved on, forgotten, passed out, or we can say 'Oooooo, run out of time, sorry.' And as for the 'Can I play your bass?' one...I've stopped even acknowledging that... * Our favourite (and worrying most common) request is for Tina Turner. I take the time to answer that to point at the singer and saying 'Does he look like Tina Turner?'

There's lots of tales told about speaker cones (Hugh Cornwell says it was (possibly) an 810 ('a cabinet the size of a door') which blew one speaker after another) and the natural High Pass given by a guitar amp EQ, but Martin Rushent must take a good chunk of credit for getting that sound onto the album - it's compressed to death, and I'm sure there was more that went into it...and let's not forget JJ's technique, too...I've chatted to Jon Shuker about it, and he says JJ gives his basses a LOT of grief...in a good way, obv... 🙂

You'll struggle to get that on the bus...

5? 4 are plenty...

DI into the PA and use your current setup as a monitor? Cost = £20 for an XLR...

You know I said I didn't like painted basses? I make an exception for black ones...and now that. Lovely. If I see it by the side of the road I'll pick it up and let you know. Eventually. 😁

Listening to these tracks (and there are some belters), I can't help but notice there's a hefty percentage of gnarly P-basses in there... 🙂

Stick an SVT on top of it, that'll hold it down, then you can enjoy the benefits of a light rig...oh, wait...

We can debate genres and inclusion and exclusion all day, but I'll just leave this here...

I don't have one right now (I've had...a few...), but the sound is what I have. All my basses (mostly Shukers, but even a Dingwall) have been tweaked with Split-P pickups in (mostly) the right position, and in my hands they all sound like aggressive Ps played with a pick. I'm a sucker for nice wood and I don't like painted basses (yeah, shallow as a puddle, me 😐🙂) and slim necks are my thing, so I don't really need a Fender one any more. Having said that, I've got a JJB Precision on the way from Jon Shuker (again, with my preferred neck profile) which will be a P made the way I want it.

Yep, it'll be fine with the single cable...and yeah, the cab'll go ridiculously loud, so unless you (and anyone else in the band) don't have functioning ears, you'll have headroom to spare; my ST will drown any drummer (and more than kept up with two Marshall JCM 100/412 Marshall guitards in a classic rock band) with a 300w (Walkabout) head...

You are John McVie and I claim my five pounds...

Not far off this sort of thing...

I used to work with a chap who traveled a lot as part of his job, his name was Trevor Cunningham. His surname occasionally caused some issues in far-flung foreign climes, but the best was when he tried to check into a hotel only to be told there was no reservation in his name. After a few minutes trawling through the list, the receptionist found it; he'd been booked in as Terver Contninong. So far, so 'probably a language issue'. Except this was in Dallas, Texas.

I take this on the 'why would anyone?' front as a parallel to relicing... FWIW, my Shukerbird has a Shuker logo on the headstock, because Jon put it there when he made it, and there's nothing left of the original Epiphone apart from the body wood and the neck plate...which still says 'Epiphone'...it's a neck plate, why would I change it? If anyone's thinking about logos, 'Fender Precision' is an anagram of 'Reinforced Penis'...just sayin...

I've had quite a lot of cabs, including things like Bergs (and even an Ampeg 810 fridge, back when I could be bothered shifting something like that), and I have a Super Twin and an older Compact, which I only keep just in case I get a gig where I need a stack (it's happened once, and it was only for the look of the thing)...in reality the ST will do everything, including making old-school JCM100/412 guitarists (two of them) jump... The Super range of cabs are pretty transparent (tho cards on the table, I don't like tweeters - I had a BB2 (and a Midget) and moved it on, because there was no point in the tweeter for me), so you kinda need to rework your EQ a bit, but I believe the 10 series are the more traditionally coloured ones. Never had one of those. They're daft light for what they do, and I've gigged mine dozens (if not hundreds) of times and they're as solid as anything I've used. While bass and amp GAS remains a constant daily struggle, I'm not in the market for any other cabs, and haven't been for years...

It depends how your trio's set up, but for smaller gigs we use a small triggered kit, and a small PA with 2 x tops and a sub. Guitar DIs into the PA, and I do, too, when I need it (see next). To take a little of the strain off and for simplicity, I picked up a s/h Fender Rumble 100 (I knowwww, a combo, not what you were looking for, but worth a thought) and put a 'proper' Eminence 12 in it for £60 or so, to get the most out of the amp. It's surprisingly good, tho I have the option of a little DI, too... Tonewise I have a Stomp, so the Rumble's tone stack has never bothered me. The Rumble was a cheap, simple solution. I'd agree with Chris's recommendation of the Super Compact - I've got a Super Twin (for bigger/louder/non-DI gigs), and the only thing I'd change it for would be a pair of Super Compacts. If I had two of them, I'd use one with a Class D head (I loved my Magellan, so a 350 would do the job, otherwise with the Stomp doing the tone heavy lifting I could use anything, really) for smaller gigs, and both if I was feeling giddy at a bigger gig.

And therein lies the main issue; person to person communication. I'd say that any luthier can guide you based on what you tell him/them, but they're not mindreaders, and the more information you give them, the closer the end result will be. 'Feel' and 'sound', however, can be very relative, and so need even more information. You could say 'I want it to sound like a P Bass', which is a very basic request, but within that you might mean a JJB sound, and the luthier might think James Jamerson...or one of the many other sounds a P-Bass can make...and I know they can (mostly) be wrung from the same bass with work, but a luthier will attempt to make a bass skewed towards that goal. Again, the more info, the closer the result will be. If you don't have the experience of quite a lot of basses and what you liked about them, that information you give can also be compromised; you'll get what you asked for, but it might not be what you wanted. As another example, if Lfalex, as he described earlier, goes to a luthier and asks for 'The smoothness/tonality of the Vigier. The growl and bark of the Infinity SN4. The weirdness, immediacy and string impact noise (from the piezo) of the Ibanez EDA.', what he might end up with is a right old mess...a good luthier will tell him what's achievable and what isn't, of course, but the 'neither fish nor fowl' compromise is always the danger... I've worked in Technical Pre-Sales for IT, and the biggest part of the job is working with the customer to ascertain how close their initial request is to what they actually want...my favourite quote around this is from Alan Greenspan, and it goes "I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." TLDR: As long as it's not contradictory, the more info you can give a luthier the better... 🙂

Luckily I'd seen it first (actually in mid-build; I took a stock build bass for the aforementioned time constraints), but I couldn't have told you what wood it was. The weight is good - about 8lbs 6oz)

That's the bunny - American Black Walnut: not black at all...and it doesn't look much like walnut, either... 🙂

And, as they say....pics or it didn't happen... Here's mine 😁

When I got mine, I needed it in a hurry (TLDR: it was a birthday present), so I got it as a solid wood body (it's still like that on the Shuker website), then later I had a (flamed maple, coincidentally) drop top added... 🙂