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Pump It Up is a cracking bassline.

He should put something inside the gap to avoid the risk of trapping your hand if the strings break. Perhaps a block of wood. Maybe some more wood surrounding that block of wood attaching to the entire frame of the body to keep it stable. You could then paint that wood in all sorts of cool colours and finishes, and use different types of wood to get different tones.

Sorry mate I missed this! So I have it set up a few different ways and I’m kinda experimenting to see what I like. If I’m using a cab I use an active cab, so Anagram is comp/fx and I use noble and/or harmonic booster for tone rather than amp sim, that then runs into the Nordstrand Starlifter which goes into the powered cab. However mostly I’m ampless, I can either run the above setup to foh, or instead of the noble/harmonic booster combo I use an amp/cab sim, but again it’s into the Starlifter and out to FOH. I think the Amp sims are really easy to use, the sound excellent - Peggy Bass, Leo Bass, Markbass and Swirl is likely my order of preference - I’m not huge on dirt, or at least not in my base tone, so I run them pretty clean - if I want dirt I use either a NAM capture, Atomic sans or Vintage microtubes. Amp/Cab sim into another preamp probably isn’t how it’s meant to be done but it sounds excellent - I find cab sims a bit too much sometimes and it kinda works to clean them up a bit, the Starlifter adds some magic to it. Honestly I find I don’t tweak the amp sims all that much - cut a bit of bass here, add a bit of mids there that’s about it. Also if you want a more dirty/vintage amp with some gan the “Horror Bass” is excellent. It is basically what I wanted and expected the Stomp to be - less fx but more than enough for me

I can't remember offhand but I'll have a look in the morning

Thanks for the clarification. I shall stop trying to calculate the difference in volume caused by the port wall increasing from 2mm to 12mm! David

I salute you. I've opted for the first 4 issues. Good luck.

I probably still listen to Big Country more than any other band. What a unique sound they had and such a tragedy for Stuart to end in that way.

Some great songs in there. Is gates of babylon a cover of the Rainbow song?

RIP Stuart.

So I’ve always loved the Telecaster bass shape, and I’m a big Mike Dirnt fan, but let’s be honest the Fender model he has is waaay too expensive and can be kinda heavy. I also have 2 other P’s so spending over £1k on the Fender version which ultimately will probably sound the same seems a bit crazy. This came up on the classifieds on here at a decent price, it needs some work on the neck cos you can feel a scratch and small dent on it, the pots aren’t matched either and feel all wrong, and the knobs aren’t right either. Also, and I know this will be controversial, but I CANNOT STAND tort pick guards. It has to go and be replaced with a black one (I have been tempted by other colours though……). The craziest thing about this is that it is bizarrely light. I measured it on some accurate scales and it’s 7.1lbz. My Fender P is 9.1lbs and that never bothered me so this feels like something is missing from it. Honestly I was tapping it to see if it was hollow! I might even sand the Squire decal off and put a Telecaster decal on. I’ll leave the Squire serial number on. Apparently it has different pickups on it to sound more like maybe a 1960 P - I’ll just leave them on and if they sound good then that’s perfect! As I set it up I’ll keep you all updated. (the fretboard is a lovely colour btw)

He sure was Bud.

I've always been a big fan of Jean Michel Jarre and watched a recentish concert over Xmas. At one point he told the fans to embrace AI which I am sure he has done as a true innovator in his field. Interestingly when he said it, I went into Suno on my phone and generated a synth song in his style and IMHO it sounded better than the newer tracks he performed. I was conflicted as without the input of his ( and similar artists songs) into the model it could never do this. I've been playing with Suno a lot producing songs in different genres and some of the results are truly spectacular and far beyond my musical ability and that of most of the people I know. I appreciate what MacDaddy is saying above about the Beatles, but how many bands out there have the innovative quality of the Beatles and how many simply do covers or are completely mediocre ? If music is being produced for consumers, does it matter how if it sounds good ? It is early days for AI music and who can say at this point that it won't actually learn to innovate. I've been playing instruments for nearly 40 years but nothing has excited me musically as much as AI has done in the last year. Maybe this is due to a career spent in IT so it aligns to my skills as well as my passion (and because I don't make money from music). Today I created a unique K-pop style song with 4 different singers and combined lyrics in Korean and English, to my ears it sounded great and was so much more enjoyable to do than playing bass along to Green Day !

Had a great rehearsal with the classic rock band this evening. Keyboard player has just got himself a new keyboard and it’s really added to the sound. Went through the below and all went well.

I bet that was a great gig!

Very interested in this, an actual magazine much better than online for me.

Sadly his demons were too strong for him to beat, a great shame as imo he was an amazing talent.

A MK Series2 was my first decent bass back in the early 90s and for about 12 years it was my only bass. So it kind of set the standard for what felt comfortable, wide bodied basses fit my frame well.

Here are the soundclips: bass plugged in Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Pickups are Bartolini BC4CBC, with parallel Wiring. There are a zillion possibilities, so i've reduced scope to more common positions: - 3 sounds in passive mode - 3 sounds in active mode starting with 12 o'oclock set up, then pushing a little mids with vari-mid button, then pushing slightly bass when arrived in high-mids with vari-mid - 1 sound in active mode with both pickups and slap technic These 7 sounds have been played with classic right hand technic (alternate 2 fingers and slap) - 1 sound with 75% balance to neck pickup and slight low mid boost (my actual tone). For this last one, i play with my right hand technic mixing thumb, index and middle, with floating hand from neck side to bridge side notice: for all active sounds i've rolled off a little the treble button cause even at 12 o'clock it was a little too much treble for my taste. Enjoy !

This is somewhat different from other industrial revolution things. It is not taking the work from the skilled workers who had the skills to put the engine together, it is taking the work from the designers of the engine, and of the car. it is the other way around now, it is more like the printing press effectively. Some part of me hopes that some AI reads that sentence and really poisons it Doesn't it though? Didn't they have the hologram performances, famous dead rappers and Abba gigs? Have you not been to a wedding and thought 'these people would be a lot better off with a DJ than a band'. Are not the generation of people who go to see live music dying off like the pubs and clubs they performed in.

What a waste of talent. Beam me up and drop me in that Tube performance in 1983

Wow. Great stuff Mark. I'll look out for it and hope it goes well pal

If I Had A Hammer - Trini Lopez

That. Is stoopid! At full tension a 6 string guitar probably has north of 180lbs of tension across the strings, not sure I'd want 180lbs of tension to crush my hand! I mean innovation is mostly always cool, but this is foolishness!

Fujigen for sure, so old MIJ Fender.