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Check out this Adam Neely video on left hand technique - this is essential advice. Enjoy!

I tend to mod all my instruments, if nothing else then at least visually, to personalize them. But my current main instrument of choice, is a just 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, produced in January 2019 at the Cort factory in Indonesia, according the serial number, which I guess I really use more as a 5 string Bass VI type instrument than a traditional bass, though tuned in G standard tuning, and all fourth tuning, that is as in 3 half steps above the upper 5 strings of a 6 string bass. It features a Poplar body, a Maple neck and a Jatoba fretboard, 16.5mm string spacing, and 2 J pickups, perfectly leveled frets from stock, and an incredible amount of sustain. Now to the mods I've done to it: First thing I did was wire the 2 stock J pickups in series, as it just didn't sound right, like really hollow and ridiculously burby, it helped, but it still sounded odd, until I discovered that there was something wrong with the neck J pickup, which had an extremely weak magnetic field over the lower half of the strings (I suspect a broken bar magnet, as these are ceramic pickups, and might need to look into fixing it at some point), so I ended up disconnecting the neck J pickup and wiring the stock bridge J pickup directly to the output jack socket, and it actually sounds pretty damn amazing now. Surprisingly little noise too, basically non to speak of, despite not having done any additional shielding, and despite running a single single coil pickup, which I credit to the fact that Ibanez used properly shielded wiring for the electronics and pickups, with the ground wire running as a braided shield all along the individually insulated hot wire. Rest of the mods are purely visually: A silver lotus flower with a OM sign in the middle of it decal, a paint splatter figure, made with a mixture of a white marble effect and grey acrylic paint, applied with a tooth stick, on the upper horn, and a strip of red insulating tape (also known as electrical tape) applied to the top of each of the two J pickups, also removed one of the redundant pots, covering the hole with black insulating tape, and replaced the stock chrome pot knobs on the shafts of the two remaining pots with transparent/black PRS lampshade knobs, and finally I covered the brand/model name on the headstock with black insulating tape as well. I also swapped the neck pocket screws out for slightly longer ones with Torx head slots, to ensure being able to screw them in tight without slipping or risk of stripping the slots. Here it is, "Mr. Growley - The Noodlemancer", as I named it : I do plan making a few more mods to this instrument: Most certainly will soon replace the stock side mounted barrel type jack output socket, for a regular jack socket, which I will mount in one of the redundant pot holes, the one currently is covered by black tape. I also ponder on maybe at some point replacing the bridge for 5 single black mono rail bridge pieces milled from solid brass.

Wow, mine basses have them too. What are they there for?

I also play bass to help daughter keep time in guitar lessons its needed, damnit

I Want You Bach - Das Jachson Fünf

Is the markup on this site broken? I see a lot of square brackets, not the intended rendering. This has always been the case for me (Safari on Mac), even with the old site design. Example:

I would add to this that if you have the opportunity to learn how to use a bow from your teacher, it will serve you very well and ultimately speed up your learning a lot. It is helpful as a learning tool, because it forces you to have a good position in relation to the bass, and it really shines a spotlight on your intonation and forces you to relax and use just the necessary muscles. But it will also be an incredibly useful skill if you would like to play pop, folk or bluegrass. It is probably least useful in jazz and blues, though there are plenty of examples of players who make good use of it there too.

For myself and my mostly rock material I play, the warmer 10’s seemed the logical choice compared to the 12’s I play a PBass with a pick so I don’t need any additional clarity but I need warmth and depth and a smooth tone. The 310 seems the logical one cab solution to have the power yet sensible on stage size and ease of transport.

Ding Dong!

Is this a cryptic clue by any chance?

Mid-70s Aerosmith. Rocks, Draw The Line, Live! Bootleg. For me, these three are the only albums worth listening to.

Name and shame? I guess bass dealers are going to operate in the same pool as normal buyers and sellers. Running a business as I do you experience all manner of shady tactics as people try to carve out an advantage. I don’t take it personally.

I have just found this excellent short podcast series on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0hr4zmc It's called "Song Exploder", where different musicians take apart one of their best known songs. I'd never heard of most of them, but they're all good. "Go your own way" was interesting - when the rhythm section don't really want to play what the composer wanted. 😛

Few months back I had a Gibson style strap button mounted on the neck plate of my Fender Jaguar, I prefer the way the guitar & strap sit and the rotational movement allowed by the different orientation: Only problem is it's started working it's way loose now. First time I tightened it back up and thought nothing of it but the second time I ended up taking the screw out to see if there was a problem inside. Seems like the fella that fitted it used a shorter screw than was needed so it's not fully gripping into the neck - the standard Fender neck screws are 4.2mm by 45mm, and the strap button is 10mm proud of the neck plate, but the replacement screw is only 50mm long. Anyone know the kind of screws Fender use, and where a decent replacement could be sourced? From what I can tell the standard neck screws are 45mm long with a 4.2mm diameter and a 3mm shank, but I can't find anyone that sells that spec with a 55mm length. Could just fill the socket with superglue before remounting I guess but I'd like the option of reverting to stock if I ever want to get shot.

That rings a bell...

I’ve been carrying out a number of usability tests recently. I found google meet + participants using safari often created my voice to be delayed. This is with using an amazing SSL mic and through normal headset. Often it is the web browser + application that can cause such problems.