All Activity

If I offer $1, am I likely to get stung for $49k shipping costs?

I have an Ashdown Touring 220 combo, it's a twin valve pre-amp into a solid state power amp. Last year I put it up for sale and agreed a trade with @AinsleyWalker but he reported it having a lot of inherent noise when the master volume was cranked beyond around 12 o'clock. I went to his house and indeed it was very noisy even when on standby, not just the hiss you get when turning an amp up loud but what I would describe as more of an electrical interference, buzzing type of noise. So I took the amp back and at my house it's pretty much silent unless I have the PC on which I often do when learning new music. With the PC off, the amp is no more noisy than any other I've used over the past 40 years ago. This makes me think it's possibly picking up some sort of electrical interference. So my question is what's causing this? The amp is probably 10-15 years old and never been abused. But it's never been serviced either. Ashdown have an excellent reputation for fixing their amps but at a 200 mile round trip, plus the time required to take it to them (it could possibly be posted by weighs around 6 million tons) I'm wondering if it's something that could easily be fixed by an amp tech closer to home? Plus, it doesn't seem to be worth that much so I'm reluctant to spend a fortune getting it fixed if the 'repair' is disproportionately high to its value as I'll probably still move it on at some point. Any thoughts as to the possible cause and approximate cost of getting it sorted?

Our last cat had absolutely no personality so she was called Tiddles because it was the most generic, unimaginative cat I could think of. One of our dogs is Roxy because the rescue home named her. The other is Vinny because he was really weedy and scared of everything so I went for a tough sounding dog name. He's still scared of everything.

Grave Jones featuring Shy and Robbie

String spacing at the bridge is about 15mm on my violin bass (Hofner, German artist series) 40mm width at the nut I got it recently on a whim, never tried one before and didn't expect to like it I love it, unique and unlike anything I've ever played! It came with very heavy gauge black tape wound strings with a high tension - makes we want to play with a pick which I rarely choose to do

I’ve just adopted a tiny ball of chaos who’s been zooming around my apartment like he owns the place (and currently thinks my bass strings are cat toys). I’m totally stuck on what to name him. I want something meaningful, not just a random name that pops into my head at 2 a.m. I lost an older cat earlier this year, so I’m looking for a name that feels special, maybe even a little symbolic, but still fun and easy to yell when he’s trying to claw the curtains or my gear. Since we have so many creative minds here, I’m curious: how do you all pick names that actually "resonate" and feel right? Do you have any specific rituals, or maybe music-related themes you stick to? I'm torn between something classic and something that fits his high-energy personality. Would love to hear your suggestions or how you named your own pets!

To be fair, mine was a Warmoth body and neck and it was one of the last Explorers Warmoth made before Gibson said, "we've got lawyers you know." Sadly, Warmoth don't even make the 8 string neck anymore either, so that sucks. I presume they didn’t sell enough to keep it on the roster of products.

I bought these by mistake instead of the Dragonskin+ Nickels and I just can't get on with them. They sound too scooped to my ears and the feel is just too rubbery for my fingers. They've been on my Afterburner and have been cut a with a couple of winds to spare and I've only had them on for a few weeks, but being coated you could get a lot of use out of them. Free to anyone who sends me a stamped, addressed envelope.

Best SW solo (in my view, obvs) - The Overview, Hand. Cannot. Erase, The Raven That Refused To Sing. The title track of Raven is quite possibly the most bleakly miserable piece of music I've ever heard. Best Porky Tree - In Absentia, Deadwing, Fear Of A Blank Planet, The Incident. The caveat with this is that this is SW's metal phase - and while not full-on metal albums by any stretch, the excursions into the genre can sound jarring and to be quite honest, inauthentic. To me it's sort of apparent that's not really in their musical DNA.

The Poacher - Ronnie Lane

That's quite the list @LukeFRC! I might have to do some digging into some of those. In case you hadn't seen it, Five Cats Pedals do a JPTR Jive clone PCB. I previously built up their SHO clone and added my own diodes to emulate the Jive, but they released this fairly recently: https://www.five-cats-pedals.co.uk/product/jive-by-shooter-jptr-fx-jive-clone/

How D’ya Like Your Eggs In The Morning - Dean Martin

Impressive work.🙂

So what is the string spacing on a Hofner violin bass then?

A friend of mine asked if I’d be interested in going to see SW at the RAH on the To The Bone tour. I was aware of him, but not to any great degree. Oddly, I decided not to check out the album or his other work and went to the gig cold. It was great and although I sometimes wish I’d listened to his stuff at bit first, I still think it was a good move. To The Bone is one of my favourite albums, the dynamics on tracks like Pariah and Refuge make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I have the DVD of that run of gigs (Home Invasion) and the documentary of the making of TTB is very interesting (SW is very intense). As to his remixes, I’ve listen to bits, but I’m not sure of the point, as I don’t hear a lot of difference (maybe I gave up too soon). I think, with his various works, is that it’s a case of that it’s not all gold and cherry picking is the way forward.

I have done a Blues/Rock gig with the 4 string but it was the first time out with the whole set up so it wouldn't be fair to say it didn't work. I did a Jazz trio (no drums) with it and it sounded great but that's kind of my thing so I would have been more comfortable from the off. I have more Rock gigs lined up so will have to report back. I do like the passive pick-ups, though.

Piles Davis Booby Vee Nick Drape Slit Pickens Cat Lower Joel Ramone Pose Carreras

I saw him live a few years ago, around this period of the year, with Nick Beggs on bass and Chapman stick as well as backing vocals, and it was an amazing musical show. He is an impressive guitarist, composer, arranger, producer and mixer. My favourite tune with Steven Wilson is this one for some reason: If you add the albums with Porcupine Tree to the ones you already have (plus Hand. Cannot. Erase.), you'll have a very good representation of his talent and musical sphere.

Being Boiled — Human League

Same for sure - even if it doesn't fit the genre I still want it. Ander.

The Merseyboats

Beat It - MJ... hee hee, owwww!