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pcake said:

i guess it depends on what one means by "for fun". it's not fun for me to suck or play with people who sound bad, soooo...

casual band doesn't have to = crappy.

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But that's what I mean. Approaching the band as a business tends to make people more serious about not sucking, because the gigs dry up if you suck. I do know a casual band that's very good, because the BL for it is experienced and, frankly, pretty demanding. He just doesn't like gigging any more. But in my experience, that tends to be the exception.

RCM-Bass said:

I just purchased a Gretsch Guitars Limited -Edition Electromatic Junior Jet Bass II Short Scale FSR Ocean Turquoise G2229B.

This is my first short-scale bass. I want to put flats on this bass. This may be a stupid question, but should I get short-scale or long-scale flat strings?

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Bit late to the party here, but just for the sake of knowledge, when I had my G2220 (Junior JET II Short Scale) I put on some D'Addario Tapewound ETB92S that fit perfectly

brianrost said:

Am I missing something? I went just to take a look at the course offerings out of curiosity and while I could buy a course easily enough, there was no information about what was in any of the courses.

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At the bottom of the home page there are links to the various courses.
Click one of those.
Then about halfway down the page, after normal marketingspeak, there's a list of course contents (at least for "Foundation" and "2-Year").

Inlays yes. Stick-ons, no.

Binding is cool too.

bellbottoms said:

Let’s talk about pedalboards and the endless pursuit of the perfect tone. Here’s my take: every single piece of gear you add to your pedalboard makes your setup exponentially more complicated.

Think about it—every knob on every pedal modifies your sound in a specific way. Now, multiply that by the number of knobs and switches on each pedal, and then multiply that by the number of pedals on your board. You’ve just created a system that’s orders of magnitude more complex than simply plugging directly into your amp—or, if you really need it, running through one or two well-chosen effects.

In the end, there’s no way your bass actually sounds better under all that complexity. What you’re really doing is chasing your tail, tweaking endlessly, and potentially masking the natural tone of your instrument.

I get it—buying gear is fun, and tweaking your sound is too. But personally, I’m moving in the opposite direction. Stripping things down to the essentials has helped me focus more on my playing and less on chasing a tone that may not even exist.

Sometimes, less is more. Simplicity gives you clarity, focus, and a sound that cuts through without getting bogged down in a maze of knobs and settings. So before you add that next pedal, ask yourself: Do I really need it?

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Good thing, reduction is working for you. I'd just not asume, everybody else is just adding stuff in the desperate need to fix shortcomings introduced by the wish to destroy the perfect tone of the bass by addingen pedals in the first place. Most people add and remove according to their needs.

TomB said:

Just a guess really, but this ^^. …speaker crying for help. Also just a guess: if it returned to completely normal, you got lucky.

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Jazzjames said:

Most modern amps have protection circuits so situations like overly hot signals will not cause the amp to damage itself, so I would assume you’ll be ok there, but having a small and inexpensive backup amp is a good idea, just in case.

In this situation I’d be more worried about inadvertently cooking a speaker, especially with a distorted bass sound (I assume your using a Darkglass head is to get heavier sounds) you may not hear that a speaker is telling you it’s not having a good time.

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It was all into an 810 ampeg. I didnt hear any signs that it was having a hard time, then again I didnt really notice other things that I really should have, so... I did spend some time with the amp and speaker afterwards and everything sounded like it always have, with both clean and distorted tones.

davidak said:

Any feedback from Francois?

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I contacted him on Instagram and he said that my pickguard is ready (6 months of wait). Last friday he also said he would have shipped this monday (2 days ago) but no news at the moment. VERY annoying.
Next time I will choose Sptifire for sure, they will cost a lot but at least the customer care is flawless.

gkbass13 said:

So, I’m about to take on a project restoring a ‘65 Jazz bass and was wondering if there were any recommendations for refinishing work in New England/the northeast. I’ve been in touch with Pat Wilkins but wouldn’t mind exploring local-ish options before sending the bass across the country.

Additionally, I was thinking this thread could help serve as a centralized place for people to post names and websites along with locations of luthiers and other talented folk in the community to help make them easier to find quickly for people who may be in similar situations.

Cheers!

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Well, a thread like that sounds like a nice idea, but it really needs to be over in the Hardware, Setup & Repair section. That's where the folks go who are looking for Luthiers to help them with their bass projects. Get them to make recommendations of Luthiers they know and have worked with. If you can gather up enough info in a reasonably organized format, they may move it up into the Sticky section.

By the Moderators rules, this section, Luthier's Corner, is not supposed to be a marketplace for Luthiers to sell their services and connect with customers. This is where we Luthiers, beginner to pro, exchange ideas and techniques among ourselves. And most of the Luthiers participating here don't do commercial repair work.

MarcMurder said:

i think the exact opposite. white would be tacky and clear lets the finish/grain pop off

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Same.... I feel the same about most every EBMM/SBMM model though...I understand that those pickguards are Iconic and all but it's just a shame to cover a beautiful finish/paint color with them....give me a clear pickguard, or preferably none at all

Alouette …on harmonica, age 7. First song on bass? For Your Love, the Yardbirds, ‘65. Also the first time I played bass through an Ampeg (not mine).

_Tay_ said:

Recently been using a far stripped down version of my board and the ZIO has helped me to do that massively. It's good sometimes to not carry a heavy case of pedals around

Combination of my EQ2 with a 59 Bassman style curve into the Zio is quite a heavenly sound!View attachment 5439811

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Love those cabs!

J R Knots said:

1966 Yardbirds on The Milton Berle Show

Not really playing, poor quality video ect… but it does give a glimpse of times.

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Ah, but who’s the bass player(on the actual recording)? It’s not who I’m going to guess you think it is.

That one particular tune, as a single for the pop charts, is a tipping point.

Zbysek said:

On the other hand, many others are happy using the Bassist...

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To support my above statement, I went through 15 pages of one of the "show your pedalboard" threads.

I found three pictures with the Bassist compressor and no pictures with GC-2.

Yeah, there are a bunch. Every piece deserves to be heard at least once, I suppose.

600 Ohms said:

Mine has never been touched. I can measure in the morning. Do you want Metric or imperial?

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Oh man! That would be great. Either will work, and thank you!

MrAB4003 said:

You're so welcome! I had White Nylons on the Ric in my avatar when I made my second album. They're amazing strings, but only for standard tuning. The Chromes will be featured on my upcoming third album, which I plan on releasing in early 2025.

If I ever get a 5 string bass, I would get a 5 string set of White Nylons and tune them to D Standard (with a high A#) because their tension is so low. I would even do that now if La Bella sold 4 string BEAD sets.

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I'm very optimistic now!

I may leave this set on for a while in standard, for recording, but in a January I have a big gig and will try the chromes for the rehearsals, etc.

Congrats on album number 3. I'm just finishing album 1 here. But on the plus side it's being mixed by a Grammy Winning mix engineer... I'd mixed all the singles and EP previously so it's a relief to not be doing that job at the moment

Thanks again!

PhillipHolbrook said:

That bass sure doesn't look like a Squire to me. It looks high end.

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Other than my first (cheap, bad) acoustic guitar, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a Squier. That’s my American Ultra.

Edit to add: I didn’t mean for that to come off snooty. I have great respect for the current Squier line and have owned a variety of brands over the years. My first acoustic was a $100 beginner pack that was painted plywood and happened to have the Squier name on the headstock.

walterw said:

that might in fact be a problem, too much bass boost can blow speakers that are otherwise suitably rated for the rig. players who don't understand how active basses work all too often just turn all the knobs all the way up with no thought to the results

oh, so it does still work, just with a buzzy sound on top? yeah, that could be a blown speaker or two, but that video sounds more like the tweeter in the cab is damaged. does your cab have a horn control? if so try turning it off. then check the speakers with a heavily bass-boosted but not too loud sound, putting your ear by each of the four speakers and plucking the bass gently to see if one or two speakers sound worse than the others

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don't even get me started with them not knowing how active basses work. I'm the beginner amongst all of them, I mostly play drums, but I find myself telling them what not to do, teaching frequencies. They're really good playing wise but they don't really understand all this other stuff, I'm a bass geek so maybe that's why I'm more into the details I guess. One has a habit of controlling the volume from the amp head but he leaves the volume control on bass on full blast. sometimes the tone controls are all over the place on the bass but then they fiddle with the amp head. It drives me crazy sometimes but it hard to say much without coming across wrong, especially seeing as they're the ones that can play and me telling them what not to do can come across as a student telling a teacher the basics of the subject.

Hi Guys, Just thought I would weigh in here - Ross from Two notes here. We have 2 devices in our Captor Range, the analog Captor and the Captor X. Captor X features clipping indication but both devices feature overload protection. Both are also rated up to 100W. If you have any specific questions, let me know, I am always happy to help out my bass playing brethren!

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Ive done a few way back. The singer was great...the husband was on gtr.
Strong leading from both and I was so young and learning, I don't remember any band drama.
A couple of other bands I subbed for had token partners involved. Wasn't a fan of that but not a permenent situation anyway...

23

First of all you need to understand that while you can get good sounding GUITAR amps for bedroom use, that's not really gonna happen with bass amps. "Bedroom size" bass amps won't sound great, period. Any bass amps that DO sound great will also be WAY overkill for bedroom use and be audible in the entire building. For bedroom practice I would recommend some kind of modelling gear with a headphone output and a good pair of headphones.

As for the choice of bass.... A Squier Classic Vibe J or P is a good, safe choice. They're easily as good as MIM Fenders, if not better. The lower end Squiers (Sonic/Affinity) aren't nearly as good though. The Sonic series in particular feels extremely cheap IMO. In that price range you can get far better basses from the likes of Harley Benton.

But... with the bands you refer to, maybe you would be happier with an active, more metal/progmetal-oriented bass? Something like an Ibanez SR300 might be a good choice if you're on a tight budget (and actually quite decent basses regardless of price). I normally never recommend active basses to beginners though, for mainly two reasons:

1) With an active bass it's much easier to dial in a poor tone if you don't know what you're doing. Boosting the lows too much is perhaps the most common mistake. As a guitar player you're probably used to dialling in a great tone alone, and then still have a great tone when playing with a full band. That's not gonna work with bass. With bass it's nearly always (unless you're a virtuoso soloist) all about how the bass SITS IN THE MIX. The best tone for bass with a band is almost never the tone that sounds the most impressive when playing alone. With a passive bass it's actually hard to dial in a tone that doesn't work reasonably well in the mix. With an active bass it's VERY easy to dial in a tone where the bass will end up boomy, muddy and get completely lost in the mix.

2) The electronics in passive basses can usually be very easily repaired, relatively cheap. The electronics in active basses is a different story. If the active preamp fails you could end up with a rather expensive repair. If you buy active, at least buy a NEW one from a store with a good warranty policy.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get an active bass. Active basses are great (although I personally prefer passive). You also have experience as a guitar player so I'm assuming you're not a total beginner. But these are still things you need to consider before making a decision.

And as always: The best investment you can EVER make when buying basses in the low-to-mid price range is to factor in the cost of a professional setup, including levelling/crowning the frets if needed (and it very often is on brand new instruments, even on expensive MIA Fenders).

80s music also…
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