Bass Guitar
Blog space for Rick's bass guitar hobby. 
Subcategories
MMC-Gig
Jean's Birthday
The MMC Big Band were requested top perform for the birthday party of Jean, one of our members. The event took place on 3rd February 2013 at Hollin Hall, Bollington and was recorded on video. I took the resulting video files to produce a DVD.
I'm in there playing bass next to the drummer but usually obscured by Ben on keyboards. Our eldest daughter Emily is also in the band playing clarinet, the young lady wearing the dark jacket on the front row.
All held together by Neil Shaw-Hulme, a talented multi-instrumentalist with a fantastic sense of humour and a great deal of patience.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 1 min
Fast forward to Autumn 2016 and I'm getting on fine with the 5 string bass, playing in four groups at our local music centre.
Then we received a huge surprise, Janet was offered, and accepted, a promotion at work and we're moving to Portugal.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 2 mins
As I like to craft with wood I decided to have a go at making my own bass guitar. Here pictured alongside the Yamaha, is my jazz-style fretless bass made by my own fair hands. I didn't make the neck, it was harvested from an old Peavey Millennium bass guitar which I bought for £25, but it is now very thin and smooth after I worked on it for some time.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 1 min
After playing for a few years and slowly improving, it seemed a good idea to try something different. The Ibanez was great but I was thinking of the couple of tunes that we played that needed low Eb (D#) or even a low D. A 5 string instrument would make that possible without having to fiddle with tuning up and down during the session.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 1 min
Now this is more like it. Hand made in England, Ashdown MAG-300 210 combo with the 15″ extension cabinet. Both are old and well used but perfectly good for me. I have stripped down and cleaned all the units and checked the amplifier for loose cables and dry joints just to be sure about the condition.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 2 mins
I fairly quickly realised that the cheap bass wasn’t really up to my expectations so I looked around and read many reviews. An American made Fender Jazz bass was way out of my budget so I found an Ibanez SRX350 on eBay and paid a fair price. The reviewers had all raved about the vast range of sounds one could get from the massive double pole pickups and inbuilt pre-amp, I found that everything sounded the same. I guess it's all in the technique.
- Written by: rick
- Read Time: 1 min
Here is my first bass, just a basic ‘Gear4Music’ P-bass copy, probably made in Taiwan, China or Lithuania.
Rather poor quality but it allowed me to determine if I could actually play. It served a purpose and I learned the basics.
