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Shame they don't offer the Z3 with blue sparkle and a maple neck. I agree, the Z7 looks way too busy with all the knobs.

When i bought my Thumb bass in 1989 i tried it thru a TE410 combo and it was a perfect match. Absolutely stunning combination. Still stands out in my memories to this day. Unfortunately i've tried TE kit since and over the years never quite captured that tone from 1990 ish. Dave

On Any Other Day - The Police

As everyone probably knows by now I use a Bass VI into a Line6 Helix playing alternating "guitar" and "bass" parts; My current standard patch always includes the following: Deluxe Comp (Compressor) Obsidian 7000 (EQ and Distortion) 70s Chorus (Chorus) Elephant Man (Delay) I also use these regularly but not on every song: Courtesan Flange (Flanger) Jazz Rivet 120 (Roland Jazz Chorus Combo model used as an alternative EQ for guitar parts) Teemah! (used as an alternative Distortion for guitar parts) Simple Pitch (Pitch shifter mostly 1 octave down to thicken up the higher bass parts or produce a bass line behind a guitar part) Searchlights (Reverb) Tremelo (Tremelo) I have a different Preset for each song with all the settings adjusted to fit my sound into the mix of other instruments and then up to 5 Snapshots in each song to change the song as required.

I went wireless about this time last year and the feeling of freedom was fantastic! Still have to keep an eye on stage position during songs that need effects or BVs though - I expect I'll get caught out sooner or later...

Regarding Mohini Dey being one of the best bass players on the planet, it's more accurate to say she is one of the most bass players on the planet; she plays an awful lot of notes, but it never seems to add up to much. Yet another bass prodigy who never found a way to make meaningful music. Myself, I'd put Danny Sapko way in front of her in terms of being useful on the bass guitar. The vast majority of these bass "influencers" are all fairly similar in that they have formidable skills but lack enough self-awareness to realise that their playing isn't very interesting in itself. They don't seem to have the creative intelligence to make something more worthwhile. And yet they are offering advice. I like Danny Sapko because he has no such pretentious or delusions. To me, he's not part of that world and long may that remain so. I certainly don't begrudge him if he gets some free bass stuff, though. Better than that even, someone should to send him some proper clothes to wear. He is undoubtedly Britain's Worst Dressed Man, and that is quite an achievement considering both Dominic Cummings and John Barnes still live in the U.K. Never mind YT videos about visiting Andy Baxters ect, he could do with a trip to Primark at the very least.

Can you order the MIJ Junior Jazz from Thomann?

I can only remember seeing a handful FS on here in all the years I've been a member. Re importing, they occasionally come up on Fleabay with Japanese sellers and a note saying free returns but I'm always wary - maybe wrongly so. Personal imports are probably quite easy - if you know what you're doing!?

CPC sell them so if you can think of sixteen quid’s worth of other stuff you need from CPC (and who amongst us can’t do that?) then you can get free delivery. To be honest even if you have to pay delivery I’d struggle to find a cheaper way of making a decent grille, as long as you have the means to cut it (I used a Dremel but am sure hacksaw or tinsnips would do). Note that the plastic edging is just a stretch fit around the round grille so you can re-use it (with glue) for the rectangular version.

I brought out the Meteora last night for our last one of the year, via my regular gigging amp head now, a highly portable TCBQ500 into a house cab. Great sound on stage on off, great job by the sound man. Super loud and nice and clear too. Good crowd and a great little venue, awesome parking and access, backstage area and kitchen, definitely looking forward to coming back. The Meteora is such a fantastic bass, I need to use it more.

Really enjoyed listening to this last night by The Mighty Threes, I believe they were only around for a few years 78-79 ish and were a trio of Bernard Brown, Carlton Gregory, and Noel “Bunny” Brown from the Chosen Few, they had an album called Africa Shall Stretch Forth Her Hand which is on YouTube and well worth a listen, after a bit of digging it looks like the bass player they used was ,Clinton "Bubbles" Rowe, who I don’t know much about, nice heavy Bassline .

This year I've changed my rig from all Fender Bassman to Ashdown ABM with a LFSYS Monaco which has been a fine upgrade, but the best investment has been to go wireless. The freedom to move around without a cable and to go FoH to have a listen has been a revelation. And that's all I have bought, so therefore the ABM/Monaco must be my worst!

I bought that album when it came out and I’ve still got it along with many others , definitely one of the best along with Uprising

According to our singer who created the video, it uses the following: Kling (including lip synch), Vidu, Hailuo and Genmo; Voice for the vocal stripping, AI Face Swap for character consistency. The main character uses the face of one of our fans IIRC. The video was made a year ago so the abilities of the various AI video applications will have moved on since then, and these may not be the best options any more. The resulting clips were edited together in the full version DaVinci Resolve. It took a long time to create, much of it was spent learning how to get the best out of the text prompts, and from what I recall very little of the footage generated at the beginning of the process made it through to the final edit. Also had the time been available he could have spent another month or so fine tuning the edits and getting rid of glitches like the additional fingers, but it had to be finished to coincide with the release of the EP which includes this song.

Oddly enough we were having the exact same discussion in the changing room yesterday. 😂 Dave 🎅

I have contemplated using welded wire mesh, as sold to gardeners. my thought was to use it to protect the speaker but to cover it with fabric. There's a wider range of fabrics available for hi-fi cabs but it's too flimsy to protect your speakers at a gig, a sub layer of mesh could protect the speaker but give you the look of fabric.

What software did you use for that last one (Middle Child Millicent)? I'm happy with the learning curve but can't decide on the software to invest in!!

As above - again - totally recommended!

Now of course the interesting twist would be if AI puts annoying influencers out of business along with youtube musicians, but in so doing makes the world realise how great live music is with real musicians on a real stage (I think there is a Blues Brother quote about this!) - I'd listen to either Danny or Mohini's bands play live anytime, while their youtube antics are a performance of a somewhat lesser type... mind you I suppose still a performance...