GarethFlatlands

Did anyone get 1986? I'm worried I may have dived too deep from that album for that one!

Following on from last weeks 1970's quiz, here's one for the 1980's. Same format, one line per year. The playing should be better as I didn't attempt it all in one take this time, but the volume dips for 1982 for some reason. And I got my fretless back from the practice room, so that gets a few lines. Answers at the end this time. Hope you enjoy it!

We have a full house! I hope it killed some time and mildly entertained people. I'm working on an 80's one and a Bowie one which I'll post when they're done.

It's a new-wave band, but not Talking Heads. It is, and not "Chameleon" as I originally thought which puts me out by 8 years

I got bored so I did a bass line quiz for my Facebook friends and I thought the good people of Basschat might enjoy it. One line from each year 1970 to 1979, a range of genres and plenty of minor flubs! I'm pretty sure I got 1973 and 1974 the wrong way round and the click for 1979 came in at the wrong tempo but I just went with it. It's a "how many do you recognise" type thing.

It was one of the first songs I learnt when I made my fretless, as well as several other Pino songs. Fantastic player.

He's said he lifted it from Stravinsky in this video Pino talks the intro the 'Wherever I Lay My Hat'

Ugh, so I need wood to build a couple of jigs but can't get any now for obvious reasons. So the build isn't dead for good, it's just resting.

Thanks, I think I'm going to build a simple jig as per this video. Looks pretty straightforward and should keep the cuts super straight. Straight Line Router Jig

Looking forward to the truss rod routing as that's where I hit a big of a snag on my neck build. The guide that came with my cheap (but good) router is a little flimsy and there was a bit of wander when I had a quick bash at it the other day.

Good to know, it was just one bit when I did the Shuker course last year but I wasn't sure if I was doing it right or bodging it. Anything that works I guess.

I've left instructions with the cat. If someone called Mr Wilson gives you any bad news, that's him.

I had an old Maya bass which I was doing up before I realised the truss rod was stuck, rendering the neck pretty much useless. Said bass is now in many, many pieces in my basement and I decided to use it to make some templates for bass building. However, if I can't build a neck then any hopes of building full basses are out the window (although I suppose I could do bodies?), so I decided to take the plunge and try it out. I ordered a maple neck blank and a pack of 5 panga panga boards and got to work. I also ordered a neck template which had a 62mm heel width as I think my Maya bass was 60mm which is non standard. I found a centre line on both the template and the blank and drew an outline before busting out the jigsaw and doing a rough cut as close to the line as I could freehand. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself (which I do). I then left it for a couple of days to rest. I have no idea how much truth is in it, but I saw a Paul Reed Smith documentary on Youtube where they said they take a month to build necks, taking a little material off at a time and then leaving it to settle so by the time it's done, the wood has moved as much as it's going to, leaving the neck super stable. I'm doing it for this reason, and because I'm pretty lazy. Once two days had passed, I secured the template to the blank again, using double sided tape to add friction to prevent slipping and C clamps to fix it to my workmate. I was going to use my new, big Von Haus router but the bit I wanted to use was a 1/4 inch shank and the collet installed on the router was 1/2 inch. I could have swapped them around but hadn't used the router before and didn't know how involved a job that was. I decided to plough on with my Katsu palm router and see how I got on. I used a top guide router bit, and using the template as the initial guide took off a little material each pass before lowering the bit and repeating. The palm router didn't drop enough to the the whole neck, but I had a bottom guide bit so once I'd gone as far as I could, I removed the template, flipped the blank upside down and used the already routed sections as a guide for the last 1/2 inch or so. I also watched another woodworking video the day before I did this work that said to use a low speed when routing maple to prevent burning, so I settled on the 2 setting on my router (no idea of the rpm but the lowest setting is 10,000rpm and this is the next one up). It seemed to work anyway, there was neglible scorch marks and it still cut great. Note the slight singing on the template. I'm not convinced it'll last long, so I might use that template to make another template out of hardwood ply or some 18m MDF I have lying around. Anyway, cut done! A little sanding and then leave the blank to rest again both to settle, and to order a truss rod and wait for it to arrive. I also decided to carry on with the neck template from the Maya neck so I could, if I wanted to, make 60mm necks. People with older Japanese copy basses and anyone wanting to make a Fenderbird with a bolt on neck would find a 60mm heel neck useful so I'd rather have it and never need it that not bother. I ran into a slight problem in that the headstock on the Maya is both huge, and not aligned in the same was as the Fender ones. I'd already done a rough cut but the alignment issue meant that I wasn't able to just substitute the Fender template onto the Maya one as there was overhang on the top edge. I could either start again, or use the Maya template for the fretboard area of any future necks before swapping it out to the Fender one for the headstock. That was a problem for future Gareth to deal with though. I've done enough for him.

I've done a rough cut of a fretboard (well, a fingerboard; it's for a fretless) with another of the panga panga boards yesterday and didn't have any real problems with it. It didn't cut as cleanly as the maple for the neck but I found a comfortable speed in terms of the jigsaw that minimised splitting, although there was still some points where small flake-like splits occured. However, it wasn't an issue as it was at the edges which will be radiused off anyway. The septic part was a bit worring as I caught a sharp edge holding the board for a rough sand, but I'll update you all if I die from it. Also, looking good Andy! It reminds me of a sunset for reasons I can't really explain.

I have 5 panga panga (similar to wenge) fingerboards if you want one. It's an African hardwood so would keep it continent correct!

I'll have to have a proper read when I'm feeling a bit more clever, I've been wondering how easy it would be to make a footswitch operated MIDI keyboard to scratch that Rush itch and trigger synth sounds while playing bass but didn't know where to start!

I thought it was just my cinema that had issues with a harsh top end, having seen music videos and docs there before and experiencing the same problem, but it sounds like maybe you need very specific mixing and mastering for a cinema sound system. It was a good excuse to have a burrito and a few drinks with mates, but it was probably cheaper and more convenient to go to someone's house and watch it there like we did with Time Stands Still. Having it mid week meant everyone had to split for work straight after too.

I'm sure I must have missed another thread on this as there's a lot of Rush fans on here, but if there is one then I can't find it! Did anyone go and see this last night? It was on at one of my local independent cinemas. A bit disappointing in that I'd seen a lot of it before, being composed mostly of footage from R40 and a few interviews, but as being a latecomer means I'll never see them live so this was about as close as I'll ever get to a Rush concert.

It's a bit trite, but I'd say get a best of collection and work from there. You can narrow down an album or an era from the tracks you like on there and investigate further, or not. I got 'Chronicles' and discovered mid 80's Rush which is currently my favourite, Grace Under Pressure specifically. I also discovered I wasn't a big fan of anything before 2112, or the late 80's stuff. Be warned that Chronicles stops at Presto and there are still 6 albums after that, so there might be a better collection out there, that's just the one I picked up.

Currently Grace Under Pressure. Everything from 2112 to GUP is fantastic, although I'm not as familiar with their later stuff so I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of good stuff. I'll give Counterparts a spin soon as it's had a few mentions.

At the risk of being obvious, Geddy Lee. I ignored Rush for years until giving them a proper chance and I haven't looked back. Geddy is relatively unflashy but everything he does, he plays amazingly well, usually while singing or playing synth at the same time. I keep trying to learn Rush songs to find there's one part that defeats me, which he makes look effortless.

Thanks, if I'm making a short scale, small body bass then weight might be less of an issue but it's something to bear in mind for sure. I have a local wood recycling place but they just group it by hard and soft wood so it's sometimes tough to tell what the specific woods are, but I'll check for other places. And Jabba, please finish that lovely looking bass!

Feel free to move this thread, I wasn't 100% sure where to put it. I'm getting the itch to build a short-ish scale bass, preliminary idea is the 60's Gibson EB0 type shape but didn't know where to start looking for decent wood. One of the issues was that I'd like to do something with UK grown wood, but beyond ash and maple wasn't sure which woods we grow are suitable for guitar building. I remember Scojack doing a very nice looking build with Scottish woods like sycamore but that's about the extent of my knowledge. Also, I've seen some warnings on social media about people being ripped off by wood suppliers and it's made me wary of ordering expensive woods online. So really 2 questions I guess. 1) What UK woods are good for building basses?; and 2) Which suppliers do you builders use and would recommend? For any wood rather than UK build in case I change my fickle mind and want a wenge neck or something. Thanks!

Done! The bolt holes were filled with dowel and I sanded down the baffle hole until the speaker dropped in without being forced, but still felt like a good fit. The speaker was screwed into place and re-wired as the 4 pole female connector arrived today. The speaker seems to mainly deal with lower frequencies compared to the official one, although I managed to put a screwdriver hole through it which I had to patch up with some watered down wood glue and a piece of coffee filter which will have affected the sound 😐 There's definitely an increase in volume with both speakers on, and they complement each other nicely in terms of sound. I need to come up with a front grille and maybe a cover if I can find some suitable material and sweet talk Mrs Gareth into helping me with the sewing.

Thanks Phil, I'm going to wait as there's a 2 pole speakon cable, and a 4 pole connector on the way so one way or another it's going to make some sound by the end of the week. As the speaker is being disconnected from the backplate, I think I'm going to remove it, plug the bolt holes with dowel and just use wood screws for attaching the speaker. I've had to do it for the left and right speaker holes and it seems to work fine. I'm also going to clear the paint off the inside of the baffle hole as I'm not sure if the fit is too snug. It looks like the accordian part of the speaker cone is slightly wonky and I'm wondering if the speaker is being forced down into a slightly too small hole and warped. Speaker screwed in. Notice a slight curve from 11 to 1 o'clock? And with the screws removed and the speaker prized out of the hole but resting on it. It lookes better to me.