Dave Vader

If you want the lovely old amber look, Manchesterguitartech.co.uk does a premixed tinted nitro lacquer. Spray over the frets, it peels off fairly easily, or get a proper fret crowning file to whip it off with, should be fairly simple. Trick with spraying is to do very thin coats very often, rule of 3s etc. go to reranch and have a read of their forums, much good advice.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='860205' date='Jun 7 2010, 07:00 PM']I keep this around for any such problems.

"The sound man said I could borrow your amp"

"Yes you can, I'll just go get it"
[/quote]


Ooohhh! I used to have one of them, for some reason I really liked it, for playing guitar through. Was going through a 60s Hiwatt 4x12 though.

Mate of mine back in Bideford has to lend his Bass amp to Norman Watt-Roy every time they support Wilco Johnson, I'll be honest, he's quite chuffed about it.

I recognise the OP is in a totally different situation though. As the guy who blew up a million amps, I must point out I always payed for all the damage I did, which is why my own gear is always crap. And I only blew up guitar amps, and I think they were all Marshalls, which deserved it as well. Had some of my own gear blown up, and that didn't get paid for, along with the millions of leads and straps that got walked off with while I wasn't watching.
Glad I do the cover scene now, no 5 band nights where everything gets broken and stolen. And the moneys better.

Has to be maple, as it looks like one of the many 70s fenders that got away in maple, and thus makes me cry.... a bit, not a lot obviously, big bass players don't cry, and one of them definitely wasn't a '79 strat that I saved for for months until it was gone the day I had the money (only £250, it was the 80s)....

MAPLE!!!!!

[quote name='Conan' post='854470' date='Jun 2 2010, 09:07 AM']Are they wired separately to the speakers or is it one complete circuit? Would disconnecting the tweeters stop the speakers receiving current? Should they be bypassed? :wacko:[/quote]

Depends on how your cabs are rigged, mine just had a series circuit, the tweeters were wired in from the tabs on the main speaker (only a 1x15) so I could do the job nicely with a set of wire-cutters. Your 4 x 10 could prove more problematic.

I pulled the tweeters from my old PA cabs to make them into credible bass cabs, and there has been no noticable problem from them as yet (after a good 2 years of gigging the hell out of them) except that they sound a heck of a lot better.

[quote name='Marvin' post='853698' date='Jun 1 2010, 03:48 PM']Dear Bass Agony Aunt.

I have an uncontrollable urge to 'lamp' the other members of my band one, for comments such as 'you only play one note at a time' and 'you only play bass 'cause you were crap on guitar!' Is this propensity to violence normal? Please help before I do something they regret.

Yours
On the Edge [/quote]

This is perfectly normal behaviour, remember that they are wrong, but like a 3 year old who is crying for no apparent reason, if you ignore them long enough, they will go away. Or even better, lock them in a cupboard until they appreciate you.

Or you could go all Lemmy on your bass for a couple of gigs until they realise that it might be better if you just played the one note at a time, and weren't all good on guitar and stuff....

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' post='853621' date='Jun 1 2010, 02:46 PM']Ohhhh, KWIM means "Know What I Mean".

Ironically, I didn't know what that meant.

S.P.[/quote]

Me neither, I thought it was something quite rude spelt badly..

If I hadn't just paid silly money to have one imported from the US, I'd be all over this, as it is, I'm a wee bit testy about it, and hoping it goes up higher than that £40 which seems to have vanished.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='849474' date='May 27 2010, 03:08 PM']Tone every time. When it comes down to it, getting around the neck is overated. Great in practice rooms and at bass clinics but, on the bandstand, I could probably still do 90% of my gigs if I lost two fingers of each hand [/quote]
2???
I reckon I could get through a lot if I lost 3, as long as I can wrap my thumb round the back....

I'm guessing the big holes were to bolt it to a pub wall at some point, these things happen a lot.
Splits don't bother me, pour in a lot of glue, clamp it, job done. I had a townsended strat I did that too a couple of years ago, the guy who bought it off me is still very happy with it. Splits at the neck end I'd worry about more.

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120572086610&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_896"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...IT#ht_500wt_896[/url]

Just bought this body from ebay (who sadly seem to have stopped me deep-linking to their images, or it may be a chrome thing)
2 dirty great drill holes all the way through it, but I was going for a player anyway. Once I've defretted the maple neck from my Dave bass (which has now got another fretless neck on it) I'm going for a maple P-bass using this thing. Might leave it natural like it is, and slap either a black or a tort guard on it, or make my dream midnight blue translucent and tort P-bass.
So many choices....

I started on guitar back when I was 11 (after a few years of piano lessons that I quickly gave up as I didn't want to do anything musically, doh!) and I'm a better guitar player than most of the guitarists I have to work with now. I don't let on though, don't want to discourage them...
I just like bass more, so I turned to the deep side about 3 or 4 years ago, after a lot of years whacking guitars and banjos and mandolins, guitars bore me now, especially if I get in a band that WANT the 9 minute solos, after 4 bars I've lost interest and I can't be arsed to work out where to go with it next.

Knowing when NOT to play, now that's important. Check verse of Highway to Hell if you don't know what I mean, would that chorus sound as good if the bass wasn't only just now appearing? No, it wouldn't.

[quote name='lateralus462' post='848415' date='May 26 2010, 12:54 PM']Someone made a tidy bit of profit on that one then!![/quote]

You're not kidding, the worst of it is that I'd had the guitar advertised for £350 around town for months, and no-one was biting. 2 days after some bloke rang me about it cos he'd seen one just like the picture in soundpad for £500, and wondered if he could get mine cheaper... that was my guitar in soundpad...
Still, I got it for £150 off a bloke who didn't know what he had, so good times really. Got the Hiwatt for a steal as well, profit all round.
Good luck with the beast my friend, they are very cool guitars. Though they weigh a great deal more than they should.

Nice, I had a '76 SG1000 a few years back, but had to trade it in for an amp after my hiwatt exploded mid-gig. Bad deal, but I was in a hurry, swapped the Yamy and my Hiwatt 4x12 for an Ashdown Electric blue 150. Was the old british made ones, but was still only £350, and that Hiwatt was vintage as well.... doh!

[quote name='ahpook' post='847669' date='May 25 2010, 04:41 PM']plus the one

best way to get a sh*t sound ? rub the person doing the sound up the wrong way.

best to get an OK sound by playing ball than be unheard cos you hacked the wrong person off.

ymmv as per[/quote]

Yep, I remember an absolute bunch of A-holes we once did the sound for, at a big 7 band night, so we had a lot of change-overs, they felt they were more important than everyone else and after a bit too much posturing and talking to us (the sound crew) like they'd just wiped us off their shoes, we unplugged all their instrument mikes, and put the vocalists voice through a pitch shifter so she was half a step out.
That'll learn them...

[quote name='crez5150' post='847491' date='May 25 2010, 01:44 PM']Oh and Spaker....[/quote]

+1

Reclaim the mildy offensive childish insults, and make them inoffensive jests. I use both spaz and spacker all the time, and get a bit of sh1t from the PC brigade at work, but I'm pretty sure if you don't mean something offensively, offense isn't taken.

Did this at the end of last year with my old band, we split back in '93 cos the drummer could never make it to gigs and kept cancelling...
So we're all set to go for Halloween, back home in the Palladium in Bideford, day before, drummer rings up, he is ill, we are not doing the gig now. Some things never change.
We did end up rescheduling it and did it in February instead, but half the people who would have made it in October (some people had come back from upcountry especially for it) didn't bother this time.
Many comments were made about me still playing my now legendary "Sh*tocaster" and asking why I still don't own a decent guitar. Mean, just mean.

Was kind of fun just playing guitar again if I'm honest.

[quote name='bubinga5' post='844234' date='May 21 2010, 03:10 PM']if so, is it because you listen to everything, or is it just talent and subconscious listening..or have you forced yourself to play music you may not like too much to get work....[/quote]

I say both 1 and 3 work for me, though mostly 3. I listen to everything, but I hate most of it, and like getting payed.

Mongolian Nose Harp, with optional toe holes.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='840396' date='May 17 2010, 11:59 PM']Dave - if you're cool with a clear cover with printed underlay, I can do that no problem.

J.[/quote]

More than cool Jon, that would be excellent, my current TRC has "Rickenfaker" painstakingly drawn out with black marker pen on it. Would be nice to have that cheeky Tokai logo back on her.

Okay, I'm going to ask a stupid question...

Did vintage fenders rely on the big metal plate behind the pickguard to earth the output, or has this guy ripped a wire out? honestly, I've looked at diagrams a plenty, and rewired more guitars than I can remember, I've never got my hands on an all original pre-CBS though (and certainly never got to rip one apart) and never come across an output jack with only one wire going to it, anyone?

[quote name='Bassassin' post='839125' date='May 16 2010, 07:13 PM']I could easily make you a TRC the same as the ones on my basses, & I could print an Ibanez inlay to go underneath it. As far as an engraved replica is concerned, I haven't tried doing this yet so I'm not completely sure I'll be able to do it! I will experiment with engraving a logo on some scrap 2-ply plastic, and if it works I'll let you know!

Jon.[/quote]
Jon, could you make me a new rockinbetter TRC for my Tokai? The original logo suffered from being a rather crappy sticker and fell off in an over-energetic string cleaning session. PM me about it, ta.

Red Tort on a black Jazz, I think there's a law about it somewhere....