All Activity

Our recently ex drummer and a couple of friends bought their local inn when it was threatened with closure. He tried running pub bands and even quite good ones were only attracting a couple of dozen people and some were bringing in no more than a normal Saturday. He's switched to tribute acts and they are taking an extra £2-3,000 a night over the bar. Some of these are low-rent tribute bands but most are karaoke singers with backing tracks. One of my friends (ex Jules Holland Big Band singer, so he's good) is earning £400+ a night going out with backing tracks. Strangely I can't tempt him back to £75 a night to work with all the egos in a band. Our drummer is a really lovely guy who bought the pub partly because he wanted live music. He's faced with the choice of running a dreary, empty, loss making drinking den with bands or having a lively pub, full every weekend and being able to pay his staff decent wages. He hates that this is reality but his main aim was to save his local and there is limited space for sentiment. Meanwhile my singer is missing all the excitement and energy of a band but finds it hard to turn down the £400 gigs and enthusiatic audiences with no need for rehearsals or damage to his hearing.

People are going to say 'bigger is better' and go for a 37" Dingwall (which also sounds like a euphemism). I'd say they're wasn't a huge difference in B sound between a 37" Dingwall, a 35" MTD, or my current 35" Ibanez EHB MS. More of a difference in feel. I have found 34" B is a bit too floppy so needs higher action to get a clean B string notes without fret buzz. What does seem to make a big difference though is a good strings and good bass setup, and having an Amp and Cab that can properly cope with 30Hz.

Yeah I’m a bit put off Spector I just tried a used euro bolt 5 but it felt very cheaply made for a 2grand bass, very light wood and cheap black plastic controls for volume etc, it had Aguilar pups which didn’t sound that great although I must admit the low b was pretty good

purple tortex 1.14mm for me been using these for over 30 years now

"Knowing" someone (online or in person) is not the same as really knowing them, nor is it the same as knowing about their personal life and relationships etc - mixing up two people with an uncommon name, both connected to the subject but without knowing the fine details, is not unreasonable (although quite unfortunate in this case). My 2 cents - anyone who dates someone with their own daughter's name is almost certainly a creep. And FWIW, my dad was an alcoholic, sober for the last 17 years of his life - which he worked really hard on every single day, and I am incredibly proud and grateful to him for that. He was mostly really good to us, and his first two wives and 4 other kids (yeah alcoholics tend to do that). But even I didn't really know all of him - I found out last year that when he would bring my half-siblings home from school, he would stop at more than one pub on the way for a pint. They would sit in the car, he would get more and more drunk and keep driving. This was rural Ireland in the 70s, but still. There was a side of him I never saw, thankfully. Just sayin', you can never really know someone all the way to the core.

Dunno if it's a fashion statement dude as a lot of people including myself just simply don't care for them. As always we have to factor in personal taste I guess ☺️

As a Spector fan and Euro LX 5 player, always play one standing up with it on a strap before committing to buy.

Can you make a living on tips? I doubt it. However, I've seen $1,000.00 tip jars more than once. Daryl

🍿 Fab. I love these sort of threads. It's like asking, "What delicious cake should I buy?". There'll be those that swoop in with their definitive answer, those that swear scale length is everything, then there's the String Gauge Brigade (I'm an honorary member) who say to use a 145. Roger from New York will be mentioned. I'll be playing my own game of BassChat Bingo. Good luck. I've got 2 5s. Both fab. Both very very different in construction, electronics, scale, sound. I got there by years of trail and error...

Sire v7-5string also would be my choice

Wow, you’re going to get a lot of answers! That’s a great budget, and there’s a lot to recommend. I guess it’s in the ear of the beholder, and my 5ers are all well below that budget, my go to 5er is a Sire V7 that cost me peanuts, and sounds amazing, especially nice B. That said, my absolute favourite 5er that I had was a Kinal MK5, Aero pickups, absolutely stunning….. but if I was looking now, I’d be after another Spector Euro 5. Absolutely outstanding low B, EMGs, totally fabulous. I personally would start there.

Musical tastes can differ and that’s what makes the world wonderful. My dad recently went to watch Appalachian clog dancing.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable singing into something that looks like a mechanical Facehugger.

Despite my love of the Thunderbird, I've always adored a Fenderesque neck with binding and blocks. I suppose that harks back to my first Columbus Jazz.

Been a couple of times.broadway is great and the standard of musicianship is excellent,saw daniel donato rip it up at roberts as well as the great Porter Mclister but Slick Joe Fick on the double bass takes some beating.I suspect they may be paid a small fee by the venue but supplemented by the tip jar that always looked full to me.

Ok so I’m looking to buy a 5 string can pay up to £2500, what has the best sounding (thunderous) low B and also has quality pickups/preamp etc. Hit me with your experiences/suggestions guys, thanks in advance

As I've posted previously, strapping on a Thunderbird is like magic; it can transform you from a slightly overweight curmudgeonly man in his 50s into Nikki Sixx in his mid-1980s prime. I don't know how it works.

The Lumberjack Song - Monty Python