Leaderboard

As expected, there's a happy ending to this story. I met up with Andy today and, having got back home and had a quick play, I can report that Rascal Mervyn-Lyte is an absolute joy. Andy's managed to retain the excellent features of the original Rascal (playability, sounds and controls) and make good the things I didn't like about it (weight and positioning on the strap); and that's without even mentioning the lovely walnut cut by my late buddy Merv. Andy's said a few times that he doesn't claim his stuff is perfect. All I can say is that this one's perfect for me.

Scandi-jazz from the North-East

my ex was the same... we shared the musical taste, but she was clueless about instruments. My girlfriend... we actually met through bass! She was a local fan of my main band. I had seen her coming to our gigs in town for nearly a year, so I recognised her in the crowd and we'd say hello, but nothing much beyond that. One night, between sets, she comes to me and tells me she plays guitar a little and has recently started playing bass... and was learning my basslines from the only CD we had out at the time. That was pretty shocking. Even more shocking was that she was nervous to talk to me because... I was the bass player in this band she really liked "omg" But she needed to talk to me because live I play a few things quite differently and she was trying to figure out what I do in one particular song... That song was the opener for the second set so I made sure to make it obvious to her what I was doing, and she was there watching me for the rest of the gig (I was embarrased by then... look, I play bass because I like the power... and hiding in the back! :D) Anyway... after that we started chatting... that led to going for a beer or 16... for walks... lunch... and we've been together for a bit over two years. Bass is awesome.

many, many people would disagree with you strongly on this. it also has absolutely zero bearing on the merit of the case

I listened to them this morning and have to agree. But then again supposedly Radiohead were sued for ripping off 'All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe' by The Hollies, so they haven't really got a leg to stand on!

The fender part no is fender 0994406000 Don't know of any UK stock but ordering from the US has been fine for me in the past. As long as you can get someone to post USPS it will be cheap. Probably cheaper than a UK agent.. if they stocked it.

If you click on your name in the top right-hand corner, you'll see a menu with Sticky Notes as the second item.

bit more progress - got the polycarbonate fitted but need some stronger magnets to hold the assembly in place. Should have them in the next day or so and then I'll make another prototype to check fit etc. Also printed some feet to screw the LT to the board (same thickness as the rubber feet so they use the same screws) also got my new Smoothound wireless fitted (just !) and am experimenting with it being battery powered (via a 5V - 9V converter) and a 5000mAh mobile phone power bank. Seems to work OK - will need to check run times etc but it means no extra power sockets on the board (not that i have room for them anyway!). Just got the XLR jump lead to solder up to save wear/tear on the Helix socket and to act as a basic line of defence if someone trips over the cable and then try it at band rehearsal into two Yamaha DBR15's we use for the drummers Drum-Tec E-Kit I'm using return 1 as my main input as the guitar input can't handle my Vigier Passion IV or G&L L2000 (even with the input pad on) - seems OK though

Is it actually Radiohead, or Radiohead's publishers? There's an important difference.

A 12" LP in a nicely designed and printed sleeve as an artefact is a thing of beauty. As a delivery medium for music it's a piece of crap. Give me a CD or a lossless download any day. Maybe the way forward for selling music is to package your CD in a 12" vinyl type sleeve which gives you the best of both worlds? Wood id still used for solid musical istruments because it is still comparatively cheap as a material and it is easy to shape and finish compared with the alternatives. Plus most musicians are far too conservative these days.

Raucous action for the South West....

'Fairlight Orchestral Hit'. 'LinnDrum'

Outstanding!

This. Keep in mind that learning to play an instrument (or learning a martial art, to give you another example) is basically enhancing your brain/muscle connections, and learning to have better control over muscles you didn't use as much or with such precision. The thing with that is that when you resort to playing hard, you go back to your most instinctive movements instead of doing what you've learnt. Control is key. Once your hands/fingers become evenly stronger, you will be able to play faster without making any effort.

Nice idea! I've been working with a folk band down here called Velvet & Stone lately, really enjoying their music! Haven't had a camera one any of my more upbeat gigs but it's a start!

Bought this from eBay & it turned up on Tuesday. I was after a rehearsal / crap venue bass to protect my Maruszczyk’s from some wear & tear. This fitted the bill nicely as I like old Jap instruments, & the active electronics & 19mm string spacing matched nicely to the M’s. Pleased to report that it lives up to the SGC reputation - great quality, easy to play & sounds excellent.

I might be missing something with what you are asking but as sustain is a measure of the length of time a note sounds for, so why wouldn’t you want a better sustain characteristic? There are way too many songs to list, but to pick one - she sells sanctuary by The Cult, the bass starts with two ringing A notes so without sustain it would sound terrible. You can always mute a note if you want it to sound for less time.

Due to band circumstances I've not gigged it yet, but I'm lucky enough to be able to play along loudly to a recording while making changes, so at least it's not 'solo' as such.

This is serving me well.

hate gold jewellery, hate gold hardware on guitars and basses. hate the way it is used by manufacturers as being shorthand for some sort of luxury option I have had a couple of instruments with gold hardware and it always nags away at me until I get round to replacing it, usually with nickle/chrome

Oh yeah definitely. It's not maths class and should always be about what you hear But it's useful to have some numbers as starting points. Well actually it is sort of maths class... or specifically physics class... but I try not to think about it too much!

^ Those Equator D5s seem nice based on the reviews. I was faffing around with my own monitors over the weekend and it reminded me of three tips I think I've posted here before, but will reiterate for convenience: Be sure to isolate your monitors somehow; don't just leave them resting directly on a hard surface like a desk - because the desk will reverberate and mess up the sound (sometimes significantly). At the very least put them on acoustic foam pads or better still on isolated speaker stands. I did the latter with my own monitors and the difference in sound clarity was HUGE, like having a new set of monitors. Money very well spent. Don't be tempted to buy monitors that are too big! I did this - I'm currently using 8" woofers in my room at home - and it's causing havoc with the low end frequencies. Too much bass is the #1 problem for home studios (in fact any mixing room). Whilst it might be tempting to have a nice big pair of bass bins, they're pretty much the worst thing for detailed mix work and tend to have frequency responses that look like the Himalayas. I'm currently using room correction software (Sonarworks) to compensate for mine but will be replacing them will smaller, flatter and more accurate monitors at my next opportunity. Be prepared to deal with the 100-150Hz dip which is explained very well in this article on SoundOnSound. Basically, every nearfield monitor results in a frequency dip around 100-150Hz (caused by reactions with the room) that no amount of acoustic treatment can fix. The dip can be considerable; up to -15db and can span from as low as 60Hz (I've measured the frequency response of my own room and it shows a dip of up to -10db around 100Hz). This is partly the reason why fixing the low end is such a notorious problem for mix engineers. The solution is to use a subwoofer to 'fill in' the low end (something I'm considering) and/or use room correction software, which is set to boost the frequencies that are lacking (not ideal, but better than nothing). Doing this can take a lot of the guesswork out of mixing and avoid the constant need to reference mixes on multiple systems - something I myself have to do. Checking your mixes with headphones is also a good option. Hope that helps.

I like Creep, there was some right terrible music around at around the same time Spoombung

I really wanted to replace the strings on my Lakland DJ5 with the same Lakland stainless set it came with, however they have no distributor over here, so the only option was to import them. Given the shipping cost was going to be the same price as a set, I decided to wait until I'd been paid for NYE and then order two sets, to amortise the shipping across two sets instead of one. New Year's Day, I sit down to order my new strings (the ones on the bass now being deader than a Norweigan Blue) and found a bug in their website that wouldn't let me progress the order past the delivery address page. So I gave up and ordered a similar set of D'addarios through my local guitar shop, they've got my bass now to fit the strings and I should get it back next weekend; hopefully I'll like them as much as the Laklands. To the OP though, just be glad your girlfriend doesn't play a 5 string, with a 35" scale and through body stringing 😁

Not the cleanest of techniques, or the best of recordings, but it's good fun Two on DB, one on EUB

I suspect a standard Fender reverb driver transformer (22K:8ohms) would work acceptably in that circuit, though not identical to the original. Worth a shot, anyway.

Ah, also the sound of underpowered 412 cabs being pushed within an inch of blowing up. Sounds like there is very little separation anywhere in that studio. If it is a Leslie then let it go. Just use some sort of distortion. With that amount of string noise, sounds like the the bass is tuned down.

They look just at home on the bass

And out of all the rigs I’ve owned, this is also the first time two members of my band have asked if I’ve changed my kit (they don’t normally take much notice) as it sounds “really good tonight”.

To be honest I am not sure. Alpha do them so I would be surprised if CTS didn't. Just a case of hunting them down on t'Interweb. RS Components might be a good start. BTW it's a 1Meg reverse audio taper npt 10M

The original plastic covers have the larger 'ears', yes, and buying a set on eBay with the smaller ears solves that... and they are available in a variety of colours! But they are also taller. The polepieces are longer than normal. Not crazy long, but they are longer. As I said, I didn't have to remove wood or anything in the basses I've used them on (3 basses by now), but you may have to use less foam... and if the routing happens to be shallow to start with I can understand how in some rare cases it may need a little work with a chisel. It's a bit like the J-Retro preamp. It fits most Jazz basses... but from time to time you find one where you need those extra 2-3mm or something... and it becomes annoying if you are not handy with a chisel. The vast majority are ok, more or less tight, but ok.

Following some advice I found on a random web page, I loosened the string tree screw by a half turn and somehow the wolf note is now totally gone. So I've managed to fix the issue without spending a single penny. Which was nice.

Ditch that crap black scratchplate Jose. And sell it to me Good work (as ever) by the way.

Thank goodness you're here to save us, @prowla! Actually, while you're on, I've just snapped up The Mona Lisa for a great price. I'm SO chuffed.

Artec are cheap preamps but with some quality. If you want the price low they're your best bet. Keep an eye on the sales thread for a better preamp, used.

Sold Andy my Korg multi-effects thing. He was a beaut to deal with, a pillar of the Basschat community. I would have 0 hesitation dealing with Andy again!

[quote name='dyerseve' timestamp='1508328646' post='3391377'] my turn! [url="https://postimg.org/image/3o23peee7f/"][/url] [url="https://postimg.org/image/4uley06ijf/"][/url] [url="https://postimg.org/image/1w94uhxlwr/"][/url] [url="https://postimg.org/image/2s5m9y7psb/"][/url] [/quote] For me, these Warwicks in white are arguably one of the best looking basses you can get!

Bought Andy's Ashdown amp. Great bloke with a lot, I say a LOT of patience due to certain circumstances. Thanks again, Andy.

Yes, I bought some more strings - no problems at all with the transaction. I transferred the money straight into his back account, and he sent them anyway... I doubt he'd get very far on £10...

Andy bought some tuners from me , effortlessly easy to deal with , all good Thanks Andy

I use a puma 900, punchy and smooth, the taste control is not a gimmick, can match you to a room in seconds. I run it through Vanderkley cabs.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1488560012' post='3250078'] The Bongo headstock needs to be taken in the context of the body design. Still doesn't make it pretty though, but it makes more sense. [/quote] Isn't that the bass with a body that looks like a slightly melted toilet seat from one of those fancy Japanese hotels? I guess having a bass body that looks like a crapper distracts from the headstock (and thanks Deep Thought, I too am now seeing Pepper Pig!). Still perhaps the most ugly bass to have ever been in mass production.