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I had a bubinga/wenge 4-string Corvette which I restrung BEAD as a trial and decided to go for a swamp-ash/ovankol 5-string Corvette tuned BEADG. With a lighter body and a wider/heavier neck, the 5-string had serious neck dive and I eventually sold it on as I couldn't work with it. Try before you buy. David

It's not plugged in, it's not switched on, it's not turned up. 99% of gear issues solved by one of these and still I get caught out.

We play Sweet child o'mine dropped a semitone (ie in the original key) but I also play it with various others in standard tuning, so to avoid confusion I always play it in the same place and use a pitch shifter to take it down a semitone. At the last gig, the singer didn't have his SG which he has downtuned but he picked up his Les Paul which he keeps in standard tuning. I thought he must have decided he can sing it in standard tuning after all. It only took me two notes of the intro to realise that he'd downtuned the Les Paul, so I played the rest of the intro downshifted on the bass and then switched the pitch shifter on for the verse.

At the end of the day, all tax and NI ends up in the consolidated fund at the Treasury, where it's disbursed. A small percentage of NHS funding will come from NI contributions since it's all coming from the same bucket at the end of the day, but it's budget and allocations is based on a percentage of income tax, VAT and other tax receipts rather than NI. That's why when you get your tax document from HMRC every year, the NHS is a big slice of the pie on the pie chart. I work for a well-known US manufacturer of acoustic guitars and we're seeing a significant dropoff in overseas sales, to the point where we're considering moving some manufacturing out of North America (we currently have factories in the US and northern Mexico). Not only have our instruments become more expensive, people around the world just don't want to buy American stuff. Or, at least, American versions of American stuff - supposedly Fender Japan have seen a big surge of interest in their stuff this year...

Another possible buzz issue is the spring on the bridge if not fully stretched. It seems like fret buzz but actually from the other end of the bass so took me a fair while to identify when it happened on one of my basses.

Thanks for that, I now know what I'm calling my autobiography: A Semitone Louder Use dummy plugs in seldom-used sockets. Saved me more times than I'll ever know.

I'm so glad it's not just me.

I started tagging friends in our posts and making silly behind-the-scenes clips—that got way more engagement than just gig posters. Making it fun seems to help.

Well, obviously everybody will be going out and buying soldering irons if they haven't already got one, so you could build a Thumpinator equivalent for a lot less: https://guitar-electronics.eu/en_US/c/SUBSONIC-FILTER/84

Blimey, if I had known it had been so simple back in my drinking days, I would have been breaking G strings left, right and centre (and most of the musos I was associated with at the time would have broken my G string on my behalf!).

Did you have to add more swear words and satanic references?

Ask any Geoff, I guess.

But that is how 'gif' is pronounced, isn't it..? How else would one say (or think...) it..? 'Giraffe', anyone..?

Compressors. I've had rack mount and pedal. The rack mount looked pretty because the lights went up and down, which is also 😎 cool. Pre-amp pedal. Although they were bought more as DI boxes as well. Otherwise I just feel I should have bought a different amp.

There are those of us who are advocates of 5-strings, and those of us who are advocates of buying basses. You should really be more surprised that nobody has told you to buy a P.

Intonation on a fretless. The average joe can hear a difference of 5-10 cents. In a musical piece you don't hear most notes long enough to detect (or correct) small pitch errors. Being within 10 cents is ample. For a 30" short scale that's about 1.5mm at the 19th fret. So a two string saddle splitting the difference between two strings where the ideal positions are 3mm apart should be fine. That's many basses. For playing fretless this would suggest aiming to get your fingers within 2mm of the ideal (or in a 4mm wide band) around the 12th fret. Now think about those kids having violin lessons who have to be twice as accurate!

One song we play a semitone louder than the original recording, but I hadn't yet figured out how to play back the track at a slower speed maintaining the same pitch when practising, so I'd practise with the original and make a mental note to drop the key when we played live. I'm sure you can all guess what happened next.

Our sound guy is our keyboardist, but our "soundcheck" usually consists of our singer wandering about the venue with his wireless mic checking if he can hear us OK. Keyboardist and drummer have monitors which apparently all sounded OK, but some sequenced bits need remixing to make them more prominent. I'm thinking I might need to invest in one to give myself a fighting chance.

I've owned a couple of these, although they were the standard red version without the Byrds inlay. It's sacrilege I know but I always preferred the sound with rounds - that's a very growly pickup, particularly being quite near the bridge. They're wonderful basses. Enjoy!

Oh I totally agree it's damn difficult in the USA, I was just curious really. The only reason I mentioned NI contributions is when I was looking for a breakdown of NI, there are many references similar to this: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/nhs-budget-nutshell#:~:text=the money go%3F-,How is the NHS funded%3F,as prescriptions and dental treatment. 'The vast majority of public NHS funding comes from general taxation and National Insurance contributions' I've no idea to be honest. I've bought many USA instruments in the past, but from now on, due to the extreme prices we are seeing, I will be less tempted. I do have two full fat USA Bongos though (on topic!) and personally I'd advise going for one if you can.