gjones

Better late than never.

Excellent!

I've had four Ashdowns over the last 20 years and I've never had a problem with any of them. Still have a UK built ABM EVO lll which is still going strong and sounds great.

I found this fella on Gear4Music's Ebay site. It had got a bit of a bash on the rear of the body and was reduced from £419 to £230. It has a Jazz style neck and a 2 band EQ - I do like Jazz necks and I really liked the 2 band EQ that I had on my old USA built Stingray SUB - so decided to pull the trigger and pay £230 for what sounded like a lot of bass guitar for the money.

When I received it I was pleasantly surprised that it's 2 band EQ made it sound very like that USA SUB I used to own. I also really like the Jazz neck, which had a really nice low action straight out of the box. The fit and finish is excellent but the fret ends are a little bit noticeable (not sharp just noticeable). I'm used to, relatively, expensive and old basses where the necks are rolled and the frets are filed via a setup, or just decades of use.

I already own a USA Stingray but this sounds preferable to my ears and I prefer the Ray 4's neck as well. I can see it being gigged regularly.

Here's the bass and the insignificant dent.

On 04/04/2024 at 23:10, soulstar89 said:

i went to wunjo in central london. Tried the fender rumble, ampeg, markbass. Really didn't like the fender. Mark bass was killer!!! killer price though lol. ampeg rocket bass was alright nothing like the markbass. I may have to head to andertons to try GK,Hartke and laney. 

 

 

Part of the fun of looking for an amp is trying them out. I know you say it's unlikely to go out of the house but you can spend a lot of money on a brand new amp that really doesn't go very loud. My advise is always go for more power than you think you need, just in case you do get that out of the blue gig sometime in the future. Amp manufacturers have all gone the small but LOUD rout in recent years and if you can buy secondhand you can get a small, light and loud amp that won't take up much room in your house.

I've owned some big amps and cabs in my time but now own a Markbass CMD 121 P, which ticks all the boxes above. You can get one secondhand for the £400 you mentioned above.

Some paint jobs, like Antigua are very Marmite (you either love them or hate them). I'm not a big fan of Antigua but do love the Dark Knight paint job but some others hate it. Personally I get a tingle every time I see one.

5 hours ago, linear said:

 

Speed holes

 

 

Those would make excellent beer glass holders!

Don't do it!

Gumtree recommend you only deal with people in your local area and meet up to do the deal, because there's lots of scammers out there who want to steal your money. 

Whether it's Gumtree, or Facebook, the advice is the same.

Fight the GAS!

Met with band, at their rehearsal room, in the afternoon to go through 30 songs.

Made chord charts and notes on every song.

Got to the gig that night, which was 50 miles away, to find I'd left all the notes in the rehearsal room.

15 minutes before the gig singer frantically writes down the chords of about half the set.

Amazingly, it went really well considering my stupidity.

Band never asked me back.

There's 3 jam nights in my area and all have different formats, you're probably not expected to play on every song. In my experience, jammers are desperate to get up on stage. If there's any decent bass players you can get them up to play, especially if they know the songs you're not 100% sure of. Most jam nights don't attempt to busk through Bohemian Rhapsody, they usually keep things simple. 

I saw Steve James playing mandolin about 12 years ago and he was great. He said there's two things you can be sure of as a mandolin player, you'll always be broke and you'll always be out of tune

Why not ask BassBros? They say they'll fit a new set of strings to the bass you buy. I'm pretty sure they'll be able to tell you.

It sounds like Big Country, all it needs is that bagpipe guitar sound they used to have.

Mad drummer was sacked then singer and guitarist rehired him, against my advice, only for him to be sacked again mid gig.

Yes he was that mad.

If you listen to Gayle Ann Dorsey, playing live with Bowie, many times she doesn't stick to the original bassline. David Bowie didn't seem to mind

For years, mainly due to lack of funds, I struggled with underpowered amps, cabs and combos, where I was always struggling to be heard above the sound of the drums. So my advice is, if possible, go for something that is louder than you think you require, as it's better to have power in reserve if you need it. Now I have the cash available to buy whatever I need, I've gone for a Markbass CMD 102P combo, which gives me both power and lightness. But I'd also recommend the new Fender Rumble V3 combos. The Rumble 500 has a 500 watt amp with a 2x10 cab and allows you to add another cab if you really need the extra volume (which you probably won't). They're reasonably priced new and are even cheaper used (well under your limit) and really light.

Aphantasia is the inability to picture things in your head - like an apple, a face, or a house etc, etc - so I suppose there are people who can't hear music in their heads either.

Why not see if the truss rod can be replaced by a local luthier/tech? I doubt the work would cost more than buying a brand new Fender neck and it would mean you wouldn't need to sand the heel down to fit the body.

Very sad to hear That Old Horse Murphy has passed away. I enjoyed his posts and was amused by his tales of insatiable GAS.

On 05/03/2024 at 23:10, Bassmonkey2510 said:

However… the deluxe preamp could have been better. I swapped mine out for a John East Retro and suddenly the bass came to life. I am sure I could do the same with the pickups but there isn’t really a need. 
 

 

I've owned a recent deluxe Fender Jazz and own an Elite Precision and you're right, the preamp in the deluxes, Elites are ok but the John East preamps are significantly better, as they have a parametric mid control which allows you to boost specific frequencies, while the Fender Preamp doesn't.

1 hour ago, soulstar89 said:

what mij precision do you have? 

A white one with a maple neck.

I've played some rough places that sound a bit like that venue. The good thing is that the locals tended to beat the shit out of one another rather than the band.

1 hour ago, jezzaboy said:

Glasgow is the same and now the council in their wisdom have decided to extend the parking meters form 6 pm till 10 pm and it costs a bloomin fortune to park on the street. The now closed Hard Rock cafe on Buchanan st was the same. no access to the front after 10 am and you couldn`t get access to the front until after 7 pm.

 

Still that`s no longer a problem as the feckers let the staff know on Tuesday that the venue wouldn`t be opening and if punters wanted to try their overprice fair there was one in Edinburgh!

I'll be playing The Howling Wolf at the end of this month. I'll have to pay the £60 Ulez fee of course but luckily the extended parking fees don't start until April 1st. My band won't be playing there again unless things change. My advice to them is to install a PA and backline so that bands can get the bus to the venue rather than have to spend their gig fee on Ulez fines and parking tickets.

You can see where Tom Waits got his influences from. It sounds like the lyrics to one of his songs.

Now if I had the choice of saving my best friend, or my cat, from a house fire.......that would be a conundrum?

Edit: I'm sure my best friend would understand if I saved the cat but if it was the other way around I doubt my cat would be too chuffed.

On 25/02/2024 at 17:30, Woodwind said:

 

I'm a long time sumup user, but they are all much of a muchness really.

I think Izettle has a feature that's good for buskers where you can have a preset tap function ie you set it at 2quid and the machine will automatically do a transaction for £2 when a punter taps their card.

 

Exactly as BigRedX says the 2.5% or whatever it is now that sumup take becomes moot when you sell merch you wouldn't have otherwise.

 

That said when I played in Edinburgh last year more people had cash than any other show I've played in the last few years. I still have a load of Scottish £10 and £20 notes that I haven't been able to get to a bank to pay in yet 🤣