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I didn't even know what Focal Dystonia was until I saw this earlier, let alone know that Victor Wooten suffered from it, and seemingly has done for many years. I've been doing quick searches about it and I'm seeing articles and videos from years ago where he's talking about it. I honestly had no idea, and for him to still be able to play like he does, I think that takes immense dedication and self-discipline. Mark

Man, some big rocks some people live under when a V4B is an unknown. Enjoy your light load tubes. An Elf makes an excellent backup.

Many of you will know that I have a decent digital mixer, reasonable speakers, passive and some active that I bought from @Phil Starrof this parish. last night I met Phil accidentally. We were both booked at a mini festival in a tiny corner of North Dorset without us knowing. Phil’s duo did a really good set and went down well. We had PA problems from the start. We could not get a decent volume on the vocal only PA without feedback. The singer/bandleader is protective of his PA. It is a Behringer powered mixer feeding two Samson speakers. I decided to move the speakers well in advance of the stage and, in moving one, It felll over bending the jack plug and sadly the jack socket. So we were running on one speaker. Phil kindly offered to loan us his RCF ART 310s but the mixer had no line level outputs. I dug into my box of goodies and my speaker to line level box was used to feed the ART310s. Not only did this improve the sound but it also cured the feedback issues. A huge thank you to Phil for going above and beyond, and for proving to our Singer that his PA is 5H1T. So two questions remain, firstly can I persuade the singer to use my gear in future and should I let Phil have his RCF ART 310s back? (only joking).

You can use any strings it takes standard strings of your choice , once tight you chop the ends off at the headstock, you can use any gauge too, zero fret makes life easy in that respect , it is one of those basses you dont want to put down, the neck once adjusted is solid.

Really simple, and you can put any strings you want on there, there are 4 large grub screws that hold the strings and they work well, once the thrust washers are on at the tuner end it is so nice to tune and very accurate too. there is a side screw within the saddle for intonation.

I would agree with that, but I don't feel I am lacking any bass from it, but I totally get what you are saying, it could be a better preamp in all honesty, I use external preamps.

Agree with the practice. You cant think about two things at once, so at least one of those things has to be automatic. I have no trouble doing it until I get lost on the vocals and then everything falls apart.

But isn't that the good bit too? 😂

This ^. Learn the bass part well enough that you don't have to think about it too much. Then learn your vocals. Then gradually put them together. Maybe even just try singing along to your bass line to get used to doing the two things at the same time. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

That was one of the things I found difficult, so again back to the practice thing, I’m still not good on cross-melodies or singing over intricate bass parts.

Just got home from a Knock Off gig at The Hope & Anchor, Islington, supporting GBH - apparently there never played there in their 40+ years so Knock Off arranged the gig for them. Went great, we played very well and the audience reaction was amazing, literally bodies flying all over the place, and singing along. I used my Fender JMJ Mustang and Behringer BDI21 into the 100w Ashdown house combo, which with a bit of help from the monitors was fine. Only downsides were it was incredibly hot in there so given the music type and how we play I’m now very smelly, and I ache all over - a reminder of why I’m giving up gigging. Footwear was a pair of black Vans trainers.

The acoustic trio, The Desperate Cowboys played The Doghouse pub in Alfreton. I’ve played there a couple of times before with a full band and was a bit concerned about how we’d go down with a ‘softer’ sound. As it happened, we got as many people up and dancing (without any drums or percussion) as on previous visits. So, a good night and well appreciated by the pub and the audience. The pubs of the Derbyshire/Notts ex-coalfields are not for the faint-hearted or easily offended. But if they like you it can be a great night. Taylor mini-bass through Trace Elliott Elf and Barefaced One 10.

It's been a while since we played at the Horse and Trumpet and at the end of the gig the landlord and lady were telling us how July is always their worst month, with a lot of people on holiday. We very pleased then to see a lot of familiar faces that we'd managed to pull in. The A4 laminated QR code to our Facebook page took a few more hits from some new faces too. It was... darned hot, and I forgot to take my fan! Cue a very sweaty bass by the end of the gig ... the Stingish bass (Sterling Sub5 with Retrovibe Stinger preamp). Usually a lovely matt finish. Of course we just had to do War Pigs in the second set, and saved Paranoid for an encore at the end of the night (how did we know?! 😂) - RIP Ozzy. I was very pleased that Sir Duke on its 3rd outing, and especially after a couple of weeks break, was tight and got the crowd dancing and singing along. It's a right earworm that riff! As seems to be the case recently I forgot to take any photos until we'd finished playing. There were a few people taking photos, so some decent shots might turn up. For now here's the kit-spotter's wide angle shot (Fender Rumble v3 500 combo and Roland Boss GT-6B on my side) The purple suede Gazelles got another outing

don't forget uk import tax ..20% ouch.

It won't open with Adobe like every other pdf I grab on my phone???

The BDDI v2 sim on the Zoom MS-60B+ is bang-on also. Very hard to tell them apart. Plus there’s a ‘Clear Driver’, Zoom’s own take on the Sansamp, and the SVT sim is pretty decent too (just a shame there’s no blend on it).

It is affected by the master volume, yes.

For 2k I'd rather buy a new one and sleep soundly.

Yeah this, the BG-400 or BG-450 might make a good small gig amp however at double the weight and price you'd have to really like the sound of the thing. Having said all that I'd swap my very capable neo 1x10 cab out for a red C4 in a heartbeat.

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades - Timbuk3