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Phreaky Phriday said:

You might be surprisingly happy with some of the components on it - I'd wait to decide what to mod until playing it if i was you

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I'd been hearing good things overall on the Glarry Club page about them, I wanna make a headless one!

Dubarium said:

I have a Peavey Millenium 4 string and the gator for ‘oversize’ basses like soundgears and the like fit great - I fine tuned the fit to be exact with some pool noodles but the oversize bass gator case is perfect

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Thank you! I ordered something online and it did not fit so I am back o the market haha. This is a good price on these Gators.

Even at $1300, for a USA Precision that's playable much less of a bygone era, you've done well. After a few live gigs, you'll have it paid off.

I'm in the process of building a headless bass and am trying to work through my clamping options. The string retainer I am using is in the attached pics. I really wanted to avoid having to screw clamp the strings, I'm nervous about breaks. Originally I was going to have my retainer post offset from the string path so I could wrap around the outside first and then hook the string through the center. For some sleep deprived reason I made the holes right in line with the string path. Le fay does this with their Capone bass, which was the inspiration for using a tension lock vs screw clamp.

How bad is it for the string to hold all the tension on the first corner? How round does it need to be to avoid breaks? Le fay goes straight through, then half around counter clockwise and back up, then clockwise around and back up. Does looping it through in a figure 8 spread any of that tension?

If you do a proper setup, you dont't need radius gauges, the radius is there already, the strings are following the fretboard curvature.

Slightly OT, but related.
Few of the current crop of small digital mixers have security that prevents a user from accessing the WRONG mix.
The QSC TM’s do (but they have been discontinued)
Every other mixer I use (too many to list) requires the user to select the correct mix buss when connecting.
If that connection drops and the user reconnects, they often do NOT reconnect to the same previously selected AUX buss.
Suddenly, someone is [inadvertently] messing with your mix - mid song!
This is especially problematic (for me anyway) when my 8-piece tribute band’s UI24R drops connections. Yes, we run an external router.
I often cannot quickly reconnect but when I do I get I get a random AUX buss selected.
If one doesn’t check which buss mix that is, you’re suddenly messing with somebody else’s mix.
I’m going to try mixing station at our next gig to see how that works and whether the UI24R drops its connection.

beaglesandbass said:

I’m 38. When I was in high school and going out for sports (2002ish), it was discovered that I needed glasses. I Wore glasses/contacts up until 2016 when I got LASIK. I’m not sure when my last eye exam was after that, but it’s probably been a few years. Anyway, after LASIK, I never got the corrective lenses requirement taken off my license. It was an in person thing and I always renewed online. Well now with Real ID becoming a thing, I figured I’d just get it off at my appointment, 2 birds 1 stone type of thing.

I’m not sure how other states have their vision test set up at their state’s DMV/MVC, but here in NJ, there are 12 boxes divided up into 3 columns/4 rows, with 4 letters in each box. With both eyes open the letters were perfectly clear, but the boxes in the left hand column were all blank. Not blurry, completely empty. When I closed my right eye everything showed up as it should, but with the right eye open, nothing in the left hand column. This has never been a problem with any eye exam until now. When I needed glasses before, it’s because my vision was bad, not because I had any kind of field defect.

They told me I needed to go to an eye doctor and tell them I have a “visual field defect” in my right eye.

So, anyone else ever deal? What was the outcome?

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Your doctor may have the equipment to do the test. It may be best to find out for sure to what extent you are affected, if any.
The source of such a problem might be organic or neurological.
If you have a diminished field of vision your driving priviliges may be affected depending severity. In a mild case you may have to learn to scan consciously your surroundings to assemble complete visual data. Sorry to hear you have to deal with this at such an early age.

lurk said:

At your suggestion I put the Superflex solos back on today and I like them! My daily hour of practice went by without any cramping and they sound good and don't feel flabby. I think on gigs I lose my marbles sometimes and start squeezing with my left hand. Something to work on.

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Cool! The longer they are on the better they sound.

JohnnyChatter said:

Yeah, If that’s your style I would snag that up. I played aerodyne for years but for some reason the binding started to get to me. I still have a few but I prefer curves on my basses.

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I am thinking about it. But info I have found also says it's an "entry-level" model? Not sure what that means, exactly. Also the shipping and tariff fees could make it north of $900.

For real...I hate that bound edge...whoever thought of that didn't sit down and play it for an hour before they settled on it! I found an Aero identical to mine a couple hours away. Has the badass bridge on it (which I love and mine also has), but missing the OG pickups (looks like they Aguilar DCB-4PJ pickups...don't know much about those but saw a couple poor reviews). It's pretty dinged up but the seller says the neck has no dings. Since I KNOW I love this bass, it already has an upgraded bridge, and it's dinged up, about snagging it, rounding over the bound edge and repainting it. WHITE! But leave the black headstock, bridge, jack plate, pickups....that would look sick.

Five or Six said:

The only way to answer the question is to play a comparison if possible?

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Yeah there aren't many of those MIJs lying around these parts!

I did some math. Their direct to market strategy is probably way more profitable and less risky than other methods. Fender could learn from them.

I had some fun with math today...



Selling 543 basses at a retail price of $599 generates $325,257 in total gross revenue.

For a mid-range offshore bass priced at $599, direct factory labor accounts for approximately $30 to $50 per unit (out of a total manufacturing COGS of ~$100 to $130).

Cost & Profit Breakdown (543 Units @ $599)​

Over the years I've accumulated quite a collection of electric bass books and study material. A lot of it I worked through 'back in the day', starting in the early 1980s with Chuck Rainey's 'Complete Electric Bass Player' series, and 'one-off' things from Clive Harrison, Rick Laird, Joe Hubbard, Adam Novik and the like. Others I've picked up more recently, as much out of curiosity as well as to try to keep things fresh. Taken alongside each other they all start to look very much alike - different takes on the same 'stuff'.

In terms of methods, the 'Complete' version of Friedland/Hal Leonard Bass Method (HLBM) sets the current standard, but over time and in a "GOAT Shoot-out", I would place the 1985 Chuck Rainey Method (book 1 in the 'Complete Electric Bass Player 'series) at the top. Both are Standard Notation and both include more than enough to get a non-reader going - the HLBM has slower start from a lower level so is probably better in that regard, but overall the Rainey book will take you further. Compared to the HLBM, the topics covered by Rainey go to greater depth and within each topic there are several exercises which start simple then go on to be more challenging than anything in HLBM.
The Jeff Berlin reading stuff is good material but really needs to be used either alongside a method book or under the guidance of a teacher - it is devoid of anything connecting the music on the page to the physical execution of the music on the instrument.
For someone looking to sight-read, the Sight-Reading Studies collections from Robert Anthony are excellent, and Rick Appleman's "Reading Contemporary Electric Bass" is also pretty good.
I have a few of the 'Walking' books (Pattitucci, Berlin, Fuqua, Tate, etc.) - the principles of Walking Bass are long established and largely unchanging, so any one of these would have done fine.
I have a handful of 'deep dives', such as "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", Ed Friedland's "Reggae" treatise, the excellent "Latin Bass Book" by Oscar Stagnaro & Chuck Sher and a couple of the "<Insert Name of Your Favourite Player Here>" transcription books that I would hazard everyone has and rarely opens.

Through all of this, whilst I've had a good deal of music education and training, I've never once had a bass lesson. Electric bass tuition didn't really exist when I started out, so Rainey was pretty much the only thing going apart from one-page articles in magazines. Thankfully, back then, Guitar Player had some pretty good bass contributors - Jeff Berlin, Herb Mickman, Carol Kaye, Stanley Clarke, Bunny Brunel amongst them. In 1984 they put out a book with all of the collected bass articles in one place, called simply 'Electric Bass Guitar'. There was no structured or progressive 'method' to any of it, but on some level or other it covered pretty much anything you could think of. By the late '80s it was out of print and the original 1984 edition is pretty much lost in time. But a revised edition was published by Hal Leonard under ISBN 0881889075. I suspect it is out of print again but IME is worth a look, if only for the Mickman stuff.

I just came to browse the forum a little bit today and got a bit nostalgic. It's crazy to think I joined this forum when I was still 14 in 2001. I got a bass clef tattoo when I was 21. Started playing guitar in bands when I was 22.

I'm 40 now, I have a 15 year old and a 13 year old. My kids don't have much interest in playing music, but they are big music fans.

I still consider myself a bassist at heart, even though it's my least played instrument lately. Heck, I hardly play anything lately unless it's at practice or getting ready for a once in a while show I play. I still have my first and second basses, a 1970 Fender P-bass, and my 1984 Aria Pro Explorer, but no rig to really run them through. I think eventually I'd like to do a mild restoration on the Aria with new pickups, but it still plays well enough to record with.

FSGrind said:

Put together a parts bass for the first time. After purchasing all of the parts from the forums here, I ordered a body from MJT. A few months later it was ready to go! A little disappointed in the finish work from MJT but the bass plays and sounds killer. Just wanted to share some photos of it … because it’s talkbass and that’s what we do here.

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What didn’t you like about the finish?

Probably my favorite gig was the bachelor's party for the singer of my rockabilly band, years back. It was planned to take place in Louvain, a university town with a LOT of pubs, and people. We'd tiled him up about having to do all kinds of crazy stuff, so he was really dreading the evening.

What he didn't know was that the guitarist and I had gone scouting for a place to host a gig. We found a very (and I mean very) small bar that was sold on the idea immediately. They gave me the number for some guy who could provide a (Very basic) PA, mostly for vocal amplification.

On the day of the party, I'd arranged with his fiancée to go get one of his guitars, and me and the drummer and lead guitarist went to set up the "stage" for the evening. It mainly meant hauling the pool table away while the bartender was changing light bulbs over the bar. When we asked why, he said: "You'll see"

We arrived late at the afternoon BBQ, and the singer joked: "Hey, it's my favourite band!" We 3 left early, and had agreed that by hour X we would be IN the pub, and playing music. So at some point the rest of the bachelor party arrived at the pub, and the singer heard us vamping on some Johnny Cash. It only dawned on him then, what we'd "set him up" to do.

It was a great gig. I had to play my bass like an upright, cos of the lack of space. People kept pouring in from other pubs to come watch us, and stood outside the venue to hear us. I hadn't prepped a setlist so I called em as we went, based on the crowd energy. At one point the lead guitarist launched into Ace Of Spades, which we didn't play, but we all rolled with it.

One thing we sometimes would do, was a sort of mashup of Beastie Boys "Intergalactic" and Vanilla Ice's "Can't Touch This". Yes, we were a rockabilly band, so this always went down a storm. It was bass, drums and vocals, so I went to the mic, told the crowd that this was a bachelor party and we'd "pass the hat" for tips (which the guitarist then did). Apparently we made enough to keep drinking all night, so the whole crew was happy!

Oh, and those light bulbs? There was this weird thing in that pub, that wen the patrons liked the band, they'd start knocking out the light bulbs over the bar. After our set, all lights had been knocked out. Good times!

It's been 7 yrs. Crazy. But I'm back. Going to renew my Studio 40 and Rumble 100 stack again today. I purchased a Rumble 200 some time back just to have the 15". Nice and round. I should probably record with it but everything is routed from the Studio into my Tascam D008. And I don't want to plug unplug from the recorder often. I use the Studio for drums, bass and soon an electric guitar.

Anyway, its great to be back.
Tom

Question for luthiers: Maybe stupid question but just wonder if no more simple to install a transversal sturdy dowel anchored on sides and hook up the strings on it, like that...

I can imagine very creative uses of that bass in the next John Wick movie.

When trying to do a Search with the Search icon button, it usually says ‘No results found’. You then see < Search. When you hit that and retype key words in the space, the Search works. Maybe a Moderator can look into this.

Michedelic said:

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/25/519445169/sonny-rollins-colossus-of-the-saxophone-has-died-at-95

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There was a thread about this posted on 5/25/2026.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/sonny-rollins-r-i-p.1687391/

Seems like I was unlucky and got a wet noodle with nice frets... Understand there is no magic fix but was hoping for a partial remedy to improve the situation somewhat- something to do short of a new neck or bass...

Thumpin6string said:

it sounded way better than any of my class D heads.

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Thank you.
I have a GX5 serving my computer audio, and a PLX2. It's overkill, but the price was right, and the sound is perfect.

Thanks, mate ! Iv amended all needed.

I had the good fortune to spend last weekend at the Pickathon music festival in Happy Valley, Oregon. So much great music all weekend, this video is from 3am Monday morning, final set of the festival. Hogslop String Band did a completely unplugged set, and I landed front and center. Great band, great vibes, and their bass player Pickle is a joy to watch and listen to! This song is an old Doc Watson tune, "That Was the Last Thing on My Mind".


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Model Pee!

Dom Amato said:

If I didnt already have my TT, I wouldve gotten the BD800 no doubt about it. But im very thankful I got my TT. What I love the most is how well it works with my pedals and how it gets super clean with flavor. Im still fiddilng around with the subway channel. I got it set to the reggae preset from the manual at the moment and found that my ray5hh that Ive been really considering trading/selling really sounds good through that channel. EB Coblalt flats and soloing bridge pickup sounds freaking amazing through the subway channel.

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Iv owned a tt800 for about 2ys (?), I'm still 'fine tuning ' both channels, with my 3 basses. I recently bought a Walla Walla Maverick,which iv strung with the new Labella Super Polished (presure wound type). That Maverick was made for the Boogie channel. It's replaced my trust old LPj DC with flats, for my old school 60s tones.
The TT800, sounded great, out if the box, but iv found, with time and a continuous tweaking, it just sounds better, and better.
Iv mainly played guitar, for most my life.
And, think of my experience with the TT, it mirrors my experience with the Boogie guitar amps iv owned (mk2, mk3, and a mk3 simuclass) . The were all very responsive to settings, they all took time to dial in great sounds, as opposed the Marshalls , Voxs, ect, that gave u 1 sound, no matter what eq you dialed in.