BenTunnicliffe

Hi Folks, I'm cleaning my bass up including a trip to the luthier and I've decided to polish up the hardware myself purely because I've never seen it 'as new' in the time I've been with this bass. From the pictures, can someone tell me A) What's the metal? and B) What off-the-shelf product would you recommend to try and get these tuning pegs shinin' once more?

Depending when it is in the year, any day except Friday or Saturday is my preference as those are the two days that gigs land on most frequently but I appreciate that is the opposite to people with a traditional 9-5!

Hey Everyone, I recently put together a video of my personal highlights as a studio bass player from between 2008 and 2021. Some of which are still available for purchase on CDs! You can watch the video on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Some musical theatre reading sessions, folk-pop stuff and even a dash of spoken word in there! Cheers for listening. B

New acoustic cover of Corinne Bailey Rae's 'Put Your Records On' has just been uploaded in full to TikTok / Youtube with me on double bass.

Acoustic cover of Beyoncé's 'Drunk In Love' has just been uploaded in full to TikTok / Youtube / Reddit / Facebook / Tumblr with myself on double bass.

Hi Folks, Today I've announced the run of shows I'm doing with my new project which has myself on bass duties, Maria Lamburn on bass clarinet, Laurie Agnew on drums and Ross Hicks on keyboards. The new compositions we're exploring are all in a Jazz vein and explore the notion of bringing synths into the genre in the pursuit of alien beauty, landing with the impact of electronic music and the fragility of improvisation. Please say 'hi' if you do make it along! Feb 16th - Holyhead Feb 17th - Conwy March 9th - Glasgow March 27th - Bath April 20th - Criccieth April 21st - Blaenau Ffestiniog April 22nd - Caernarfon

I've just dug up some footage from jazz fusion band Antelope's UK tour back in 2015 and found a great snippet of Chris Young tearing it on alto while I'm on bass synth duties (Roland GAIA, Radial DI). This clip is from the excellent venue Bloc+ in Glasgow where the whole night was a storm! The band is now defunct and this tune 'Glass' was never released, along with the majority of the band's repertoire. Watch Video On TikTok | Watch Video on Instagram | Watch Video on Youtube | Watch Video on Reddit | Watch Video on Facebook | Watch Video on Twitter | Watch Video on Tumblr

My Double Bass Solo over a new composition 'Ty Unos' earlier this month with the Jochen Eisentraut trio at The Blue Bell, Conwy, North Wales 14/10/22 (choose your fave social media outlet!) Instagram Video | Reddit Video | Watch on Tumblr| Watch On Facebook | Watch On Twitter | Watch on YouTube

My Double Bass Solo over a new composition 'Ty Unos' earlier this month with the Jochen Eisentraut trio at The Blue Bell, Conwy, North Wales 14/10/22 (choose your fave social media outlet!) Instagram Video | Reddit Video | Watch On Youtube| Watch On Twitter | Tumblr Video | Watch on Facebook|

You're a star, cheers!

Hi Folks, For my own original music's gigs, recording & touring I am struggling to find the right keyboard player. I need a musician who is: UK Based (ideally Herefordshire, Bristol, Cardiff or North Wales but I'm open to all suggestions) Interested in Jazz, World Music, Ambient Music Has a poly synth as well as a synth for lead lines with a passion for programming each Experienced Jazz chops for comp-ing and soloing Willing to memorise tunes rather than sight read Willing to come along for the social media ride (allowing me to film videos etc.) Open to doing gigs that do not pay a great deal but that never make a loss Friendly Importantly, while a fully-fledged jazz musician is fine by me, I am also genuinely open to working with the right inexperienced young player if they're genuinely passionate about the music. The music I write is certainly jazz-adjacent with a need for a keyboard player who can improvise but a key passion of mine is that I am endeavouring to create Jazz that involves synths but in a pursuit of beauty rather than in the pursuit of heavyness or funkyness. Think Weather Report and Joe Zawinul's solo work rather than Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. There is a ban on piano and Fender Rhodes in this group. I have hours of fully-written music demo'ed up, venues in mind, years of experience and I'll personally be doing all the boring admin once I find the right person. I am also hosting a jam through the tunes in Bristol early November if anyone does show interest. Although it has not yet gigged, the touring line-up of the band is drums, myself on keyboard bass, front-line horn and then said keys player on chords + top line counter melodies. Two representative tunes for a ballpark: Little Lions - Il Mare Weather Report - Brown Street Please let your keys-playing friends know by sharing this post and let them know they can contact me via any social media outlet if they have an interest in doing some playing. Cheers!

That bass was very good to me but unfortunately had to be sold when I sold every bit of my gear a few years out due to personal reasons. I think it was recently traded here on Basschat but I didn't have the money to have it back in my hands. A beautiful instrument that I'd want to own again but mainly as a thanks to it for being with me through such a long and formative stretch of my 'career'. Cruise ships, musicals, studio sessions, it did it all!

Thanks very much! It felt painfully awkward to try and capture odd bits across the day but with the industry being what it is these days and there being every chance I won't buy another bass until 2034 I thought it might be worth giving it a go!

Would I be more welcome if I start to share strong opinions on scale length and trade the baseball cap for a flatcap? I don't have enough disposable income to fulfil the GAS criteria I'm afraid! Once upon a time I even visited Bass Direct and left empty handed... Do with that information what you will. Abstaining from adding vinyl records to the studio is an entirely different beast for me though! The 12years/'new' bass thing is only because I bought a gorgeous Overwater in 2010 and was genuinely happy enough with it that there was no call for an arsenal of alternative setups for the live work I was doing all that time. I was the OW's third owner so there wasn't any peel-y plastic to be taken off by the time I had it! The new case smell definitely still lingers even though there are already strands of hay in there after a barn gig plus some serious sweat I can only imagine the poor bass is shocked to be receiving after being all minty in a warehouse for so long.

Saucy bugger. I made a new topic with pics over here!

Hey Everyone, With gigs going well this Summer I decided to go and grab a new rig which was a huge deal given I've always been a one-bass kind of guy. It's been 12 years since my last purchase and I've never bought a brand new bass in my life! Here's a snappy video of demo-ing the bass in the shop, setting it up at home and my new backline rig arriving. (Alternative FB Video Link) Following the tricky job of trying to find a bricks & mortar store that had more than one Fender P in stock for me to play (everyone's backlogged), I went to Andertons in Guildford and after a bit of playing I knew I'd found the one for me which is an American Original 50s Precision with maple neck in two tone sunburst. They also had a second hand Aguilar DB115 cab that I specifically was hunting for so I had that delivered the following day! In the meantime, I had a larger EU company ship me the only Aguilar AG700 I could find in stock which was been kicking major derrière, especially at open air events. I knew I was after a classic-looking precision and definitely found something timeless. I had no doubts I'd love the Aguilar stuff seeing as I've previously owned (and loved) the DB751, AG500, the Tonehammer DI and done some recording with the DB659 in the past; didn't even demo the cab in the store! I can't speak highly enough of the folks at Andertons. They heard me out about the stock issue, absolutely zero snake oil tactics and they were really helpful with the logistics of my order which through its course involved deposits on three separate items, one being cancelled and then needing to merge two orders so I didn't exactly make it easy for them. Dead friendly in the shop as well!

Hello everyone, Following from the great advice on here IE that there are plenty of great modern Fenders out there but that it can be tiresome buying blind I did have a proper hunt around the country to try some out. My local shops were completely empty handed, the large chains could only pool their P Basses from across the country if I put a deposit on each individual bass so I was eventually left in a situation where I was trying to find a shop in the UK that had a measly 2 or more P's that were in the Player series or above. I eventually spoke to the folks at Andertons in Guildford who coincidentally had the cab I was after in stock second hand (bargain!) so I went to them to try out what they had in stock. I am now the proud owner of an American Original 50s P in two tone sunburst with a maple neck and it's already served me really well through Summer's second half. Thanks for the input, we did it!

Friday 29th of July I was sideman for a headlining act on Hastings pier where I opted to take the 50s Fender P, the Aguilar rig and IEMs for what was mainly a Pop/Soul sight reading vibe. Zero rehearsal!

I'd be interested only if it's South Wales which it looks like it will be so all good! For what it's worth, I did a very casual job of organising what can barely be called a bass bash outside Bristol several years ago and we found it quite easy to find a Markbass representative to bring down their newly released backline items. Might be worth reaching out to several high end companies to see if they want to bring some goodies down!

My bad, I've included my location (Hereford) in the original post now. Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks folks. Lots to think about here but at the moment it's looking like a trip to Denmark Street or at least that neck of the woods is going to have to be on the cards. I've a friend of a friend who works with PMT and has verified that the wildly limited Precision stock that the website shows for my nearest stores (Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff) is in fact accurate and as much as I'd like them to converge the company's entire P Bass stock to one store for my own pleasure I don't imagine they'd go for that... Nor can I afford to put a deposit on every P in their inventory to force them to do so! How helpful any given shop will be in terms of opening up multiple boxes to find 'the one' is still yet to be seen but for the time being I'm gonna get through this week's gigs then hop on a train.

How easy was it to be sending models back with those two bulging basses from the Player series? Care to name the shop who were clearly on your side enough to be sorting that out?

Hey Folks, So to get right into it, I might be in the market for a new (yes I know, boo, hiss) Fender precision and upon searching our forums here on BC as well as youtube etc on how modern Fender basses perform out of the box (from cheap-ish to pricey) I've heard some worrying grumbles about quality control. In fact, I've read a few people point out that quality control is something that needs a lot of consideration from a buyers' perspective when buying any brand's instruments new off the shelf. I've never bought new before so this is all news to me. So my questions to you folks are: A) when comparing allegedly identical Fender basses in the shop, what have your experiences been? and B) Where on earth is there a bricks & mortar store where you could try even one of each of the current Fender line of basses let alone to be able to ask for them to fetch an 'identical' model in the pursuit of finding the best representation possible? I'm based in Hereford but regularly drive Bristol way and further afield for gigs. I ask because if this fear mongering about quality control is all guff then I can order online and wait for the post person to make my day. On the other hand, if it's worthwhile trying numerous serial number variations in store then there's a problem because from what I can see online (GAK, DV247, Andertons, PMT) most stores have only a couple of items from Fender in stock so the chances of them having three or four different serial numbered basses of the same model & colourway seem slim to none! None of the above stores seem to really have any of the American Professional series' in stock, for instance. I'd appreciate anyone who can share their experiences or give a shout out to your local store to point me in the right direction. Cheers! P.S. So there isn't an 'American Standard' line any more? P.P.S. I'm after a precision with a maple neck that doesn't have a black or sunburst body.