All Activity

Great unit, I still have mine. It has some unique features.

Practicing? That's boring. I'd rather be commissioning another boutique bass. While still at school, my history teacher wrote the following on my end of term report: "His design of guitars is stunning. I wish I could say the same for his attention during history".

I've been involved at every level from doing all the writing, recording and production (except the vocals) and organising every aspect of the other band members musical lives, to simply turning up and playing what I am told to play. However as I see myself first and foremost as a composer rather than a musician I have been the major creative force behind the vast majority of the bands I have been in over the last 50 years. When it comes to music I have the sort of personality that if there is no great creative or organisational force within any band that I am part of, I will gradually take over those roles. For my current band all the musical and non-musical duties are fairly evenly split between the three of us. The synth player and myself come up with the main musical ideas and our singer adds lyrics and vocal melodies. I do the drum programming and our synth player does the production. On the non-musical side it's pretty much evenly divided up: our singer does all the people stuff, I do the graphic design and our synth player provides the band transport. It seems to work very well.

Couldn’t see a feedback thread for Sam, so starting one. He bought my double bass and is a lovely guy and an an absolutely brilliant player. I learned a bunch of things about DB just chatting to him. Buy and sell with absolute confidence.

This is what was doing my nut in - the bass is shielded really well, and for a while my thoughts run away with me. Someone had added a series/parallel switch to the bass, and I never use it, so I put it back to stock just in case there was an issue with how it was done, even though it looked fine… but no, noise still there. Then my brain kicked in, and when checking the chain I used the blend knob on my compressor, and yep, no naughty noise when the blend was dry (or when taking it out the chain), but it came in when going wet. I guess the comp was amplifying the fact the pups are single coil, and picking up interference from the room’s electrics perhaps; though the pedal is still noisy to varying degrees with my other humbucker pickup basses, but previously negligible and I’ve only noticed it as an issue when holding a note in a quiet section. Recorded the part where the noise was previously an issue, and the bass sounded fine (until I decided my Stingray was actually better for the track after all 😂).

I'm on the B-string a fair bit because of the key changes. Also some handy open strings are no more. On the other hand I'm glad Brown Eyed Girl and Crazy Thing Called Love are original key, they'd have been a pain to change as they are fiddly and I play them in another band.

I'm not an expert, but I thought that was the basis of the suspended sentence over here too. Although it's not really ever invoked. I could be wrong....

Either practicing the bass feels like filling out a tax form or basschatters have very boring jobs with too much time on their hands to be participating in this thread..... now where did I put that password for SBL.

some annoying key changes in that set but it's a good list of crowd pleasers As a Police fan, message in a bottle in b flat minor, is even lower than Sting does it now (which is in b minor and sounds all wrong)

Definitely if you get the chance sign-up for a play day somewhere. The UK Amateur Orchestras FB page regularly has adverts from groups organising them - and there is a specific page as well for play days (UK Orchestra Play Days). These are ad-hoc events with no commitment beyond the day.

Kiss Your Past Good‐Bye - Aerosmith

Hey there, I've tried an early 90s Warwick SSI in person that I really liked. It weighs a lot, but it was very very good. However, I have taken a long look at some pictures of the neck-headstock junction area afterwards and I've noticed some kind of strange "mark" on one of the wenge stripes. The owner says that this neck has never broke and has never been repaired. I don't have any reason not to trust him tbh, and the setup was good with a straight neck. Could it be in your opinion a "knot" of the wenge in that area, or a ding, or any other explanation that doesn't involve a neck crack that has been glued? Thanks a lot Alessio

Aftermarket thumb-rests installed on non-Fender type basses ESPECIALLY on Stingrays.

History - Mai Tai

Yes. This is it for boutique basses. Everyone stop it right now.

Maybe suspended sentence doesn't mean the same thing over there as it does in this colony???? A suspended sentence is your one chance at redemption. If you come up for the same offence within the timeframe set by the first judge then the next judge adds the original sentence to your one for the new offence. Both barrels indeed.

Steinberger Spirit or Hohner B2. Add a strap pin extension and a single ball adapter and you're gold. I've had an XL2 for 38y and B2 and Spirits for nearly as long and they're great, especially the older Hohners. Nothing else will be as compact, cases are easy and cheap (rifle bag) and I've even played mine on a bus as you can play it vertically like an upright.

Aside from my first gigging band when I was 19 - which already had a full set of original songs written by the guitarist - I've been main composer or co-composer in every original band or recording project I've been involved in. I suppose I'm reasonably prolific & have for the most part put bands together, rather than joining them. I've always been open to other people getting involved with writing - but maybe for some musicians it's just easier not to!

I used to be plagued with miscellaneous hum when recording bass or guitar until I discovered the benefits of shielding with anti-slug copper tape. I think I have shielded most/all of my basses now and seen massive improvements in bringing down the ambient noise levels. I believe this really should be a process carried out in the factory — particularly with something expensive like the Ric 4003 which was very succeptible to hum before shielding.

So are a lot of the basses on aliexpress.

Managed to track down some knobs, now it looks like I’ll have to jury rig some new shafts. Oh well, time to fire up the Dremel!

See my build thread - I had the worst time with that stuff. It drinks grain filler like I drink expresso I just painted it on, it drank it. I put some more on …

Hell has a special place for those who meddle with toy basses. Specially trained imps will use your butt for pitchfork target practice and that’s if you’re get off lightly

Only Time Will Tell - Asia or Saga