NBD: My wife loves me!

At the beginning of the year I started saving for another bass. I wasn't entirely happy with my Schecter, the first 5 string I ever owned, and was hoping to at least get closer to my eventual goal of a 34" 5 string J bass with 18mm - 19mm spacing. Being a lefty, and hoping to keep my budget under $1000, I wasn't particularly optimistic about getting 2 out of 3.

Last Saturday I checked Reverb on a whim and found a 1990 Yamaha BBN5L II, which does, in fact, fit all my criteria - and for $350 shipped. I was about $100 short, so my wife decided to buy it for me for Valentine's Day so I wouldn't obsess over it until I had the money. Needless to say, my bass fund became my Valentine's Day fund.

No particularly good pictures yet, but here's a couple my wife took right after I got it.




Fortunately, my new strings from BSO also got here today. I normally use flats, but I decided to try something different. I was impressed with the sound a friend gets using Cleartones on his Stingray, so I thought I'd give them a try. I'm digging the sound. Unfortunately, the B string has too long a winding for this bass. There's quite a bit of it on the post, which I'm not happy about.

I probably won't do a full setup until Saturday. I'm planning to gig it tomorrow night, so I went ahead and set the intonation at least. I thought it was odd that the A and E saddles weren't further back when I got it, and it turned out the intonation screw for the E string was rusted in place. A couple minutes of turning it back and forth, a fraction of a turn at a time, got it free. The pile of rust that came out of the saddle was impressive.

I should probably use some of that extra money I didn't have to spend buying a bass on some maintenance. @Koog keeps telling me I need to have @Drake Custom setup my bass for me. At 27 years old, this one is probably due for some fret leveling, and the nut probably isn't as perfect as it could be.

More pics tomorrow... unless I don't have time... or forget... or just blow it off. Ok, more pics sometime between tomorrow and never.

Edit: Since it's too early to play, here's a picture of the rusty intonation screw. It looks like there's at least one height adjustment screw (on the B string) that's got some rust too.

 

That's actually my go to for jeans and t-shirt gigs. I try to make sure I have a memorable shirt, and that's by far the one people respond to the most. Not just at gigs either. I had a guy yell across a restaurant at me when he saw it.

A couple weeks ago I was subbing for @Koog in the house band for an open jam. Before we took the stage, half the customers in the bar had mentioned the shirt and one guy told me he actually took classes from one of Bob's certified instructors and continues to paint to this day. I even had people coming up in the middle of our set to tell me how much they liked the shirt.

In fact, when my daughter saw those pictures on Facebook, she said she regretted to inform me that Bob was actually the coolest thing in the picture, and I had to agree with her.

 

Well, the gig on Friday went well, and it made a great sound, but not the right sound for the music I generally play - mostly classic blues rock. I ended up switching the strings out for the Sadowky Black Labels from my Schecter. The Cleartones are a better match, both in length and tone, for the Schecter anyway, likewise for the Sadowkys and the Yamaha.

 

Wait... you know my wife too?

 

I don't know, but I'm just glad mine understands how important music is to me. I wasn't even playing any more when we met, but when I started playing again, she saw how happy it makes me.

 

Yes he is, and a great guy besides.