SamIAm

Just bought an HX stomp from Steve ... delighted with it. Transaction could not have gone more smoothly. It was exactly as described and packed very very well. Agreed sale Monday morning ... package arrived less than 24h later!! Lovely chap ... 10/10.

I sold my Yamaha Tenor sax on eBay about 4 months ago ... worked well, I got a good price and the buyer was very happy. S'manth

I've just upgraded the pickups in my P bass. The old ones used foam pads, the replacements had springs. I've never installed pickups like this, but from experience with similar things I knew they were going to be trouble ... so I turned to google on the basis that I cannot have been the first person to experience this. Reading a few sites I stumbled across a total gem ... and wanted to share it. A pair of alligator clips! Before positioning the pickup, pop in a screw, slide the spring in place, compress the spring and then place the alligator clip onto the screw to hold the spring in place ... repeat for the other side. I actually then attached a pull wire to each clip (as the space around the pickups left no room to get in to remove the clips). Tighten the screws enough to hold and pull away the clips ... job done. S'manth x Credit: Original Post where I discovered this technique.

I play bass in Qukulele ... so much fun! We are a Ukulele covers band with a fair mix of mashing up of two or three songs and a few where we change a few words or most of the lyrics. We also add in harmony to many of our numbers. I joined as a Tenor uke player and transitioned to the bass a couple of years in.

Thanks @fleabag ... that makes sense regarding the wire positions and it also matches with thicker magnet on treble side ... here goes! S'manth x

Perhaps a bad choice of words ... changing/upgrading from manufacturer stock pickups. S'manth x

I'm about to upgrade the stock pickups in my P Bass. They use ceramic magnets, one of them has a magnet that is twice the thickness of the other. I can't see any markings on the pickups indicating which goes where ... Is the pickup with the thicker (The stronger magnetic field I presume) magnet for use under the D&G strings? S'manth x

Lovely! What scale length is it? S'manth x

I started out on a UBASS (20.5 inch scale) and now have two short scale, one is 24.5 the other is 28.5. I can swap back and forth between the two shorter ones, but find it difficult when I go to the 28.5 ... I find it is quite a stretch and I can't do what I'm used to in terms of fret spanning with my pinkie.

I'm in the process of a project modding my P bass including: truss rod adjustment replacing bridge setting action at bridge setting intonation mounting new DIY custom made pick guard DIY build and installation of a passive tone switch (7 settings) DIY build and installation of passive fuzz-iness And I intend to install new pickups and change the tuning machines (if I can find some suitable ones) ... I am even investigating conversion to a headless tuning system, possibly a DIY mechanism. By the end of all this the only original stuff is likely to be the body and the neck. Is this suitable for a build diary? S'manth.

Hi all! New member here … looking forward to learning and participating in the community. I’m based in Brighton, UK where I work as a critical care nurse for the NHS. For many years I half heartedly tried to learn the guitar (acoustic) but never really got anywhere. About 10 years ago I got my first ukulele and … wow! Great fun to play … joined a jam group, did a few open mics and then joined a ukulele band (Qukulele) playing tenor uke. 4 years back or so I purchased a Kala acoustic-electric bass ukulele (yes, they exist and are rather fun … tho temperamental creatures) and I became “Smanth the bass” in Qukulele. I found that whilst the Lala was loud enough to hear when practicing, with even one or two other ukes playing it was inaudible … so a Roland Micro Cube Bass RX joined the family. About a year later I got a solid body UBASS but then … covid hit the world. My band participation dropped to zero (I had to leave the band due to work pressures) until a few weeks ago when I rejoined. Having loads of fun, but my bass skills are … patchy ... I'm probably best described as an intermediate beginner so I've set out to become better and here I am. One of the biggest issues I have with a UBASS is intonation, the strings are super fat (to get the low notes with its scale length of 20.5 inches) but the bridge position is fixed so one cannot alter string length sadly little that can be done (I’ve tweaked truss rod, saddle height and nut slots to get the lowest playable action to reduce string distortion) ... I tune at the 3rd or 5th fret so the lower frets are OK-ish, but any higher than 7/8 and it can sound nasty! So I recently added a Ibanez GSRM20B Mikro (Scale Length of 28.6 inches) a monster compared to a U-BASS, but it sounds and looks fantastic. I then added a Greg Bennett Corsair MCR-1 Mini (Scale length of 24.5 inches) I’d seen some amazing reviews but when mine arrived it sounded absolutely terrible … crap intonation, loads of hum, and a weird harmonic sound ... I was very disappointed. I spent a few hours adjusting the truss rod, saddle height, pickup height, intonation and it sounded good enough to risk trying a new set of strings and … now it is brill! It will probably be my goto bass for playing with the band (Unless I want a real upright bass sound where the Kala still rules) as it is so wee! S’manth x My collection (I've put a smaller black pickguard, black bridge and black knobs on the MCR-1 since this was taken)