Bleat

I had a 5 string Jag for a while, and though I found it not to my taste generally , I appreciate the Jag is a bit of a step up as an instrument though. 👍 I am awaiting the arrival a cheap replacement just to try out. It cost me £15. It's about 10kohm so in theory I should get a bit more output but not rid it of all the high frequencies? That's the plan anyhow!

I'm really happy with it so far, I like the P-Bass-like simplicity of it. I will keep my eye on the tuners, maybe they will get changed at some point! I'm not a flatwound user myself, but something I did forget to mention was the tone control seems acceptably effective. I just turn everything full on personally, but rolling the tone right down does give a slightly bassier feel and definitely does that short scale traditional like thud pretty well. 🎸

NFBDR- New Fun Bass Day Review Well as I found myself back on a budget , and conceded defeat to advancing age not being fully compatible with the weight of Les Paul style basses, and having owned the fabulous Gretsch Junior Jet short scale, but not now able to work in that price bracket for the foreseeable, I found myself asking some pretty deep and meaningful questions, for example: " I need a bass, I will actually die without a bass, but which one for under £200 ?", "Should I stay long scale, and be a real bass player or risk being the laughing stock of the bass playing world by going for another shorty?" "Should I take a risk of catching herpes from a used, possibly stolen but decent bass, with the slight bonus of maybe finding a small bag of weed hidden in the control cavity, from Cash Converters?" "What colour should I go for? What would make me potentially look really cool … Sunburst, Black, Natural etc etc?" So armed with my virtual £200.00 I decided that as I was already halfway to the dark side after stints with short and medium scale and loved the playability, I opted to go for short scale with the intention of staying there ,so went for a look around proper online guitar shops to see what's on offer as I decided I didn't want to catch an infection from Cash Converters or eBay on this occaision. I had seen the Bronco before but not given it much consideration at the time, and to be honest there's a real lack of choice out there currently... The Ibanez Talman looks like it's been designed late on a Friday afternoon after a lunchtime booze up then sent to the far east to be put together by underpaid Asian elephants.... forget that. There was also the Dean Evo Xm, which I had for a short while but it went back as there was just too much wrong with it, including a really narrow 38mm nut which is not my favourite. A real shame cos it has the les paul vibe and a pretty decent sounding instrument. I saw Jackson minions , Ibanez micro things, possibly something else , but I really liked the look of the Bronco bass and reviews seemed to be generally favourable, so opted naturally for a black one as they only come in black or bright red, and red Fenders remind me of Hank Marvin and the Shadows which is just not cool for an ageing has-been mid 40's Rockstar! So I found the cheapest price which currently is GAK at £149.00 inc next day delivery, so that's where I purchased from. It arrived yesterday as promised in a Box with F logos and Squier branding. No other fancy packaging, just the instrument wrapped up with a couple of warning labels saying if I touch it I risk getting cancer or something, and a free set of allen keys to add to my already large collection of allen keys. Pulled out the little Bronco noting it's very reasonable weight, and then spending a few minutes admiring it's little glossy black coat, and generally handsome appearence. As I generally go for very light gauge bass strings , I liked the fact it comes fitted with what I will assume are Fender 40-95's so that was good. Not really much in the way of floppiness on the E string, or any other string for that matter. It has a really nice shape to the compact body , balances well, I like the stubby little horns, and it has a nice comfortable, though little anaemic looking maple neck. It has the Squier bronco bass logo in black on the headstock with "by Fender" underneath. On the back it says "made in Indonesia". The scratch plate is a simple 1 ply white, with a couple of decent feeling chrome knobs for volume and tone. After reading some of the negative comments about these like the crap tuners , crap bridge, crap strat pickup, crap body wood, crap electrics, not as good as my vintage $5000 Fender Musicmaster etc etc I realised I was on Talkbass, so I completley disregarded what I read. To address those concerns, I actually think the tuners are really pretty good and seem quite solid. The tops remind me of Schaller M4's nice and chunky. It's good to see mini tuners as opposed to the big clunky Fender things for a change. The bridge is actually really nice, doesn't feel like a piece of cheese. I love the shape of it, it actually intonates almost spot on despite the 2 strings per saddle setup, and if there was one criticism it would be the slightly bigger gap between the A and D strings. Maybe due to the design of this style of bridge? I can live with the quirk. I can't comment on the electrics or quality as of yet. First things first, I sat with it unplugged to get a general feel and give it a tweak or 2 before plugging in. I can say it sets up incredibly well. I have the strings almost sat on the fret board with no buzz, the truss rod needed the tiniest of turns to get it just so. The intonation was pretty much spot on as is with no adjustment needed. Plugging in, to be fair I wasn't expecting much for the money, but to say it has a strat guitar pickup in it, it sounds pretty damn good. Nice sharp punchy tone, not masses of low end, and does seem sensitive to where you are placing your fingers, something I seem to notice more on this bass than with others. Output *is* a little on the low side but tonally absolutely fine (through quality headphones) as far as could be expected at this price. I already have spent a few quid on a hot rail pickup or rather warm rail which I will try out when it gets here. As mentioned the neck is lovely. 40 mm nut width , and oddly it has 19 frets (?!). It's a shame that it doesn't have a vintage tint but I guess 'coz of budget and stuff..... something that could be attended to if needed at some point. It is comfortable to hold and just has that fun "short scale playability", and to me this is what a bass should be regardless of personal ability or at what level...if it ain't fun then what's the point of bothering. I can bang out a variety of rock/ hard rock/ metal classics on it, putting in very little physical effort, everything from 70's to modern stuff. It just sounds fab, and if I manage to join another band this will be the bass to do it on. No acheing back, no stretching 3 miles to reach the end of the fretboard, has a guitar-like coolness to it etc etc. While not quite having the same instant wow factor as the Gretsch did, it's also not in that price range, and for what I paid, I am actually even more impressed because of that in a way. Aside from trying a different pickup and possibly changing the pickguard for a 3 ply from that bloke on ebay who sells them, there really isn't much else that I feel needs to be done. Obviously time will tell on that score, but from the outset, it's all good. Definitely one I will recommend for anyone wanting to see what all the fuss is with SS basses. Thanks for reading my waffle !

Tempo schmempo… if it didn't bother Pink Floyd to speed up in tempo halfway through perhaps their most well known song on one of the world's biggest selling albums of all time...….. just make a feature of it ! 👌

Anything that doesn't make me look like a knob... the now seemingly endless search continues. 😒

I had my lightbulb stolen from its socket last week. It's a 2010 natural daylight bulb, so very distinguished and quite rare. I'm quite upset about it as I need it to see wtf I'm doing at night. If anyone should see it for sale anywhere please let me know immediately Thanks.

Next time you rename it , I suggest Plankchat

This song is so bad it's great! Words included so you can even sing along for 2.54 minutes!

The Gretsch for sure.. superb basses for the money, and will certainly perform well for those styles of music. Also one to consider especially for Reggae is an Epiphone EB-0 …. if you want lots of bass, that will do it !

So many to choose from, but here's a small eclectic list of what I consider to be wonderful, moving, powerful and generally awesome tunes: "The Great Escape" and "Go" - Marillion "Ice" and all of "The Snow Goose" album- Camel "Mojave Plan" and "White Eagle"- Tangerine Dream "Never Say Die" and "Hard Road" - Black Sabbath All of "Hergest Ridge" and "Ommadawn Part 2" - Mike Oldfield "Drive" - Cars All of "Parallelograms" album- Linda Perhacs Anything from "Black Cherry" or "7th Tree" albums - Goldfrapp

D'Addario Pro Steels IMO are the brightest, and also nicest feeling round wound strings. Come in various gauges and under £25.00 👍

I joined 2007 so been around a good while 😮 .I don't feel I have a lot to add to most discussions, though I have tried to put more effort in the last 12 months or so! ... I will either give input on stuff if I think it is genuinely helpful to someone, or I will make stupid useless comments in an attempt to be amusing depending on my mood. 🤪

Thanks to the likes of YouTube and seeing how many excellent players there really are out there, most of which have barely learnt not to sh*t in their nappies, I find it depressing how good I should be for someone who has played close to 30 years , but how lacking I actually am in terms of technical ability.... the actual *sound* of me playing?.... well bass to my ears just generally goes boom boom boom , so nah dun really give a feck about that bit.. 🤪

Probably these 3 for me as a "bass player". 2112 showed me how upfront and melodic bass can be, Back In Black taught me the importance of great timing and being a solid part of the rhythm section, Power and The Glory showed me how to combine the 2 things....and IMO not a weak track to be found on any of those albums.