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Yes, exactly what the entertainent industry needs is more people who keep quiet and don’t have an opinion on anything. That’s entertainment. The saddest part of this is the reaction of so many who are outraged by one man speaking his mind. Remember when having an opinion and talking about it was a regular thing? What an utter shambles the world has become where speaking openly and without fear draws the ire of those who’d rather live in a bubble with the precious fallacy they’ve cultivated around their sacred cows. Let the man speak. If you don’t like it, tough. Learn not to get offended by opinions other than your own. There’s a lot he said which was a little uncofortable to read but I’m guessing he got to where he is by being a straight-talker and not someone scared to upset a Beatle or two. Consider that maybe they tried harder and did better because of his directness. Being a producer is a lot more than just “Well done, boys, you’ve just recorded your first number one!”

Once it stops being fun, get out of there. Doing nothing is better than being miserable.

After seeing this Fender Custom Shop 1959 NOS come up on the GuitarGuitar website, and seeing that it was in stock at my local store, I had to try it! I headed over there on Wednesday and compared it to the new American Original 60s P in LPB. The American Originals really are pretty killer for the price is what I discovered! I love a thicker neck on a P, and the shape they've chosen for this series remains full in the hand all the way down to to the first fret. The tone of it was nice and thick with plenty of midrange punch, a tone that reminded me of slightly overwound pickups. If anyone's thinking of one, definitely check them out, I was really impressed! (I also played a Elite V Jazz whilst there to see what the fuss was about - it's certainly impressive too, and it would definitely give my Sadowsky decent competition! I really feel Fender have massively upped their game, even over the past 12 months.) However for me, it was always going to be this CS. The woods were visibly of a higher quality (fewer/no blemishes etc.) and the pickup, whilst not as hot, retained more detail and definition, particularly with the tone rolled all the way off. The neck is similarly as thick as the AO60 from the 3rd fret onwards, with a slightly slimmer profile under the first 3 frets, which makes a lot of sense to me. This bass is an absolute joy to play and having seen my MIM Classic 50s make its way into to position as my no. 1 in recent times, (despite competition from Fodera, Sadowsky, Warwick etc. in the collection!) I can see this being my go-to for many years to come. I threw it straight into the deep end, playing it every show over the past week on the Forever Dusty UK Tour. It really is a joy with killer tone! So there we have it, I finally have my dream combination on a Fender P, without the relic-ing and for a much better price than the CS Pino! One very happy bass player! I've attached a really super short simple video I did during the week to give an idea of the tones. Now back to practice, it's been out of my hands for long enough writing this!

Yup it's bad news that 20% VAT payable at the EU customs border on anything above £15 (i.e. pretty much everything) and then (broadly) a further 2.5% customs duty on top of that for gear above £135. This is unless you (or f&f) are bringing in this personally in which case you get a £390 VAT and Customs duty free allowance. Makes things seem very expensive compared to what our fellow bass players get gear for in the US. Having said that their health insurance doesn't come cheap! @krispn's very helpful suggestion I got in touch with both Josh Broughton and also Tom George at COG to see if they could come up with any 24dB cut variants. Josh is not currently taking any bespoke orders and suggested getting a couple of his pedals to the trick - well the ideal combination for me would actually be the Thumpinator and the Broughton LPF / HPF but you're looking at > £300 with transport and taxes thrown in for these two, which is getting a little spendy. The exciting news (for me anyway!) is that Tom, with some spec suggestions thrown in from me, seems to have come up with something that could fit the bill in a single 1590BS enclosure pedal. Hoping to be able to confirm the agreed specs with you all shortly...

A similar but slightly different solution to @dannybuoy, I use self adhesive cable clips like these: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F162515629911 I find them much less hassle than cable ties as you can just push/pull the cables into and out of them easily. They come in different sizes - the smallest size can grip a couple of power cables at a time, the larger ones can hold more. Here’s a photo of the bottom of my old main board. All the clips except one are the smallest size, with one large clip which I put on to hold the actual barrel jack end of one of the cables, which it did perfectly:

I have a guitar or two out on stands. On a couple of occasions I've managed to trade a couple of lessons with trades people (builder, gardener & chimney sweep) when they've come to do work. If they've spotted the guitars, I'll noodle on if they've showed interest, which has started a conversation like "ooh a guitar, always wanted to play...." "ooh I teach guitar, would you like a lession"...."ooh yes, but its quite expensive..." "yes so is your ridiculous hourly rate..hows about a trade?". A few "oohs" later, & no money has changed hands, but everybody's got what they want.....ooh!

He is certainly entitled to his opinions, as he may be right on some things, and overblown on others. On McCartney I would severely disagree with Q. I disagree with what his mental state as some have said here. I do think he has hit the grumpy old curmudgeon stage, however. Eddie Van Halen was quoted saying that "Robert Fripp (King Crimson) couldn't play 12 bars of good guitar music ." Mr. Fripp, when approached by the press, was asked what he thought about Eddie's comment. He politely said "I do not comment or make remarks about other artists." That's class. Learn, Quincy.

Probably best to avoid those people in future.

Well lookie what landed today! So... this is a Limelight Precision, with a '67 spec in a light-relic LPB finish. I ordered it last year, and had a good chat with the - extremely pleasant - Mark at Limelight to discuss the spec and the level of relic'ing. I wanted the finish to be a little more muted, so it glows a bit more, and he's obliged. It's a nice weight, less than 9lbs, helped by the Gotoh Res-o-Lites, which bumped the cost up a little more. I've just put proper strings on it (it came with fairly light rounds), and it sounds just like I'd hoped. A really nice P... and it cost significantly less than a Fender Roadworn MIM. I'm about to start a solid week of rehearsals, so lots of time to give it a run out. Happy days!

Scored a bargain today. Picked up this wee beauty from the old Fakebook marketplace equivalent of £200. Only a couple of little dings. Pretty tidy. Sounds fantastic. I think I might upgrade the pots so they are a little bit more responsive but it's a stunning instrument.

If you don't need the money, and it is making you feel ill playing, doing nothing is something better.

First rehearsal today - six hours' worth. It was loads of fun. The show's being shot for DVD, so everything has to be spot-on. We've got a week in the rehearsal hall, so we'll have the monitor mixes pretty much there by the weekend, so hopefully the check in the arena will mostly be tweaking stuff. The band is great.. the drummer's from Lindisfarne, the keyboard player's from Dire Straits, the other keyboard player and sax player are from The 1975's live band, the guitarist was a touring member of The Arctic Monkeys, and one of our vocalists sang on 'I Would Do Anything For Love' with Meat Loaf. And then there's me. I daren't pinch myself. Loads of pics here: https://www.sundayforsammy.org/sunday-for-sammy-2018-access-all-areas

Just had a six-hour rehearsal with it today. MY GOD... the notes are massive. Some of the tunes are old-school P-and-flats, others are rounds and growl, and it just responds beautifully. It's beautiful. Can't wait for tomorrow.

That must have made your eyes water a bit...?

RCF 745 ordered!!

I only play for people if they agree to dance for me.

People used to call them epiphany, but then they saw the light. Only Dion I know is a Canadian chap who lives down the road. Good bloke, plays drums. I'll have to ask him about Warwick. Come to think of it, war-wick does make sense, we used to have an air freshener called air-wick. We never called it airick. The there's the town of Alnwick....silent L and silent W.

Doesn't even begin to sound like Fender, even in Japanese.

This. Or alternatively I'll put on a track from my latest CD or vinyl release and then try and flog them a copy.

I tell them I don't play for free.

Obviously it’s scone

But is it pronounced as in scone or scone?

The funniest thing about the interview is watching all the Beatles die-hards blow their nut over his comments. At the grand old age of 84 Quincy Jones may have just become the best internet troll of our generation, he can add that to his CV. Ghetto Gump indeed!

I pronounce it correctly as 'Epiphone'

Be careful with that kind of gig, it's a slippery slope.

I agree that it is nice for someone to just let rip and say what they want in an interview, without some press agent or handler stepping in and stopping comments from being printed etc. He is a big hitter in his industry, has a vast fortune, he’s 85 and he doesn’t give a damn about whether his opinions offend anyone, and I can’t help but admire his Candour. He has probably seen and been exposed to a lot of things behind closed doors, and I would bet he knows a lot of secrets that aren’t his to tell the world. I think some individuals are getting a little too upset just because he says a few mean things about people they hold in high esteem. It’s only opinion, he’s not forcing you to believe the same against your will, just take the interview as a piece of entertainment, at the end of the day that’s basically what QJ is. I agree and disagree with a few things he says, but it’s sill funny and refreshing to me.

So the QSC K10.2 has arrived. Got it home and plugged the bass in via the FIshman Pro Platinum and the result was, well.... a bit wet. No low end at all and no amount of adjustment on the Fishman or the Sire eq could dial any in, set it to bass amp mode and the best I could get was a mid range honky bass sound - not good. Also the volume seemed way down from what I was expecting and was far less than my Markbass rig, tried it my Behringer BDDI and the result was the same, could get a little more volume by cranking the level but it was still in the realm of a budget practice amp. I was starting to think you lot gig exclusively in libraries and went to pick my daughter up from school a bit gutted that I'd blown £600 on a posh vocal monitor. Then I went into the settings and saw it had the crossover set to 125hz so everything below that was missing, it must have been reset to factory settings. Turned this off and it sounds absolutely fantastic, no shortage of low end at all and the volume is way more than I need. Amazing to hear such a big sound from a little 10" wedge like that, combined with the Fishman it sounds fat and very smooth so I now have a big smile on my face. So if you get the QSC remember to not be an idiot and check the crossover settings!

Any of you new vintage pro owners fancy uploading a nice clean sound clip or two?

Very good Andy I'd post you a beer but it may be against P.O. rules

I used to think it was Seven Ender

Combination of the above, Precision, Roto Steel Rounds, Sansamp, 410 (& 210 if needed).

On a whim me and the GF got tickets to see The Hollywood Vampires at Wembley later this year. I quite like the covers they have recorded, plus the Darkness and the Damned are supporting. Should be a loud night.

So you're a fan then?

In case anyone is still interested in HPFs after about a week off ... the Broughton I bought got held up at customs who, together with Royal Mail, added a lovely charge of about £18, taking the cost of the pedal to about £118 all in. The Thumpinator or another home-made options would have avoided this!

Paul Gray is one of my favourite bass players. Rick haters really need to hear his bass sound on The Black Album & Strawberries - it's an awesome sound Paul is also a real top bloke. As a young player, back in the 80's, me & a mate just turned up at his house on a Sunday afternoon.... and cheekily asked for some bass lessons & tales of the Damned And the top bloke just let us in to his music room! We listened to demos, played his basses and he was just so good to us. Then he gave us his phone number and asked us back.... he later gave me a couple of freebie lessons and I'm for ever indebted to the man, for the inspiration he gave me. Decades later, I played at a local folk club (he was playing with a band "The Monte Dons") that night too. I came off stage, and he said "Well played Marc" to me. I didn't think I was anything above "OK" that night - but a positive comment from one of my inspirations made me feel 10 feet tall. Great to see him in the Damned again. Nice pic bartleby - I was off to your left and a bit further back My fave punk bassists were PG and JJ Burnel. Two quite different players, with a very different sound - but both fantastic players

One thing I have learnt is just because it is recorded doesn't mean it will sound good live, particularly with fills. I learn the basic framework, lock in with the other musicians as they will tend to do their own thing and then look at what's missing and then put that in.

That’s what I said - scone If only some people would listen life would be so much easier (hears the stop it it’s getting silly from MP in his head)

I've never found an amp modeller that was good enough for me to prefer it over a good old analogue VT Bass. But then again my experience is limited to the older Line6 Bass Pod range and the Zoom B2/B3/B1on. I had been wanting to try a Helix without forking out for one and just realised that Helix Native is available as a free trial that has all of the same effects - so as soon as I get my interface issues sorted out I will be giving that a bash!

Could be fun delving deeper in to the history of the brand if you think this

He looked like he was enjoying himself at Glasgow... great gig... and his bass sound shines through brilliantly

I quite like mine. But then I would I suppose.

Loved the Peavey TNT. I had a couple, a wedge type (bloody awkward to carry about) and a 150 with the Sheffield speaker. As has been said, bomb proof. Also old Trace gear. The best sound I ever had to my ears was my SMX going through a 1153 (1x15) and 2103 (2x10). I’d still use those cabs but for the size limitations of car boots etc. Last year I picked up a pair of these cabs and a 200 watt TE head for £90. I stinky poo ye not 😮

After seeing The Damned last night, with Paul Gray back on bass, I have developed gas for a big valve amp and a Ric...

I’ve had the M900 amp, and I have no complaints about it, great EQ on the clean side. The drive channel ultimately was not my thing, but you can still get a useable sound without it being modern metal for other types of music. Don’t let the oodles of demos fool you, it’s not a pigeonholed amp and will work across genres. I have had not just the amp butbthe VMt and b7k Pedals. If you do want a vintage sound you may find you prefer the b3k circuit, VMT can be a little mushy. I moved mine on for something else, because there was another sound and set up I wanted. You can’t hate the amp, I don’t know anyone that won’t like it, and you may love it, but ultimately you have to play it to see if it’s you, we can’t tell you that. if you want and alternative with an inbuilt drive channel look at the Genzler Magellan 800, that is also very good.

ooh, yes... the money shot. Don't get a hernia looking at it, will ya