All Activity

There's loads of songs I'd love to be able to play fully and accurately, but as this is a Party Piece, I'll say either Dragon Attack or The Invisible Man, both by Queen/John Deacon. Mark

Also an SS300, which was Yamaha's 80s take on the Samurai shape - MIJ, in great condition, ridiculously rare & half the price of the Taiwan-made SBV500. Odd. Apropos of nothing, the high-end, through-neck version of this, the SC600, has been on my OHMYGODIWANTTHAT list for many, many years. They don't come up & I wouldn't be able to afford one if it did!

Anyone used the Ketron unit which appears to be the only reasonably priced alternative to Studiologic.. ?

Sunday Paper - Joe Jackson

Lucas Santanna at Band on the Wall, on a mate’s suggestion. Brazilian trio playing sort of groovy er, Brazilian music with clear reggae/ska influences. Enjoyable if woefully under-attended - only about fifty people in the venue. Manchester’s Brazilian massive must have been otherwise engaged tonight. Those who did show up made up for short numbers with enthusiasm though.

I have no recommendations, but I do love a beautiful machine head. How about getting wooden buttons/ears/paddles/whatever they are called, made? Lush.

The only thing I would change about my DB would be some really lush machine heads. Those MJBL ones look very lovely. 2 of the ones on my bass are damped by sellotape to stop them rattling. They really let the instrument down.

The Spurs , our little Mexican band , playing in my favourite dive downtown. This was our third night out. I had the big orange Gretsch out.

I'm sure Peach guitars had good reason. There's very little markup on musical instruments compared to other retail products (typically 35% from trade price to full RRP inc. VAT). Having worked in MI Retail for years, the top two reasons that spring to my mind are: 1) They were offered a discounted price from the Distributor, possibly for buying a certain quantity, and have then passed that on to the customer to have the lowest price around and win sales above their competitors. 2) They've sold for the cheapest price around BECAUSE of the popularity. Knowing that it's a hot item and having the lowest price increases traffic to their website, and even if prospective customers don't buy it, they're 'in the door' as it were and may buy something else. It's a very common tactic in retail generally, supermarkets do it a lot. It's known as a 'loss-leader': you take a hit on a popular product to get customers there and buying other stuff too, which you WILL make profit on.

Horrible thing to play. I've appropriated the Girls Rock School Epiphone Thunderbird for teaching purposes as it's a bit mean to expect complete newbies to try to deal with the horrendous neck dive while they're learning the basics. Judging by the scrapes and dings on the end of the headstock, it's already hit the floor a few times - I'm quite surprised it's still attached to the neck. The Thunderbird looks seriously badass and sounds awesome, but it's a dreadful beginner's instrument. I think it's only surpassed in that respect by the Flying V. Just my 0.02.

Just bought a Zoom B1 Four from Jacek. He posted it straight off for me as I needed for a gig at the weekend and I got it with a day to spare! Thanks Jacek!

Do you mean it runs off USB C?

I agree and have purchased. Still love the FEA and I have a big box but…

Stuck ～ Magazine

I've just ordered a DOD Carcosa fuzz pedal from Hotrox. I am planning to swap out my Swollen Pickle for the Carcosa.

Hi eveyone I've started playing in a Acoustic punk tribute band and I play my acoustic bass through a di box into the Pa as when I’ve tried playing through an amp it just feedbacks really badly but I haven’t got a monitor so I struggle to hear myself sometimes is there a way that I can add a headphone Jack to the bass and have kind of in ear monitors that way instead of spending hundreds of pounds getting transmitters and receivers? I thought maybe a little op amp circuit a bit like a Vox headphone amp might work but would that ettect the output to the di box? Thanks 👍🏻