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If you're going to patronise people (that means "talk down to" for all you thickies out there ) then at least learn to spell pigeon.

When I was in a local pub (Forest of Dean) someone made a crack about shagging sheep, to which an old soak at the bar shouted: "We don't shag sheep, we rape outsiders." It was crude, but got the point across adequately.

Not convinced.

I felt this just warranted its own thread.

I'm dyslexic. And because my dyslexia can make written communication difficult for me to read on occasions, I do my very best to make sure that what I type is clear and legible. Occasionally my brain will run ahead of my fingers and I'll miss out words or put the wrong ones in when autocorrect collapses two half words in a new single one. You've probably all seen them in posts from me. It's also why I rarely post from my phone or iPad, because the typing interface on those devices is just too much hard work for me. I can read properly formatted text because I've trained myself to be able to do it. However when confronted with something like the OP my brain simply shuts down, and I have to move on. Luckily for me it is only occasionally a problem, and I've only had to block a few posters here and on other forums because everything they type sends my brain into meltdown trying to decipher it. The OP is not dyslexic. They are either too lazy or too stupid to take the time to try and communicate in a clear manner. And because they haven't done that, they have run into problems. I also feel sorry for anyone who has to try and unravel what has been written. I wouldn't want to deal with someone like that on eBay (or anywhere else) either. It only takes 10 minutes with a book or a decent quality newspaper, to realise that you do not format text like the OP has done, so why do people still persist in putting spaces before punctuation symbols, typing everything as a continuous stream of consciousness without breaking it up into neat paragraphs? If you can't take the time to make your post legible, I certainly can't take the time to try and work out what you are saying.

I think you should take the time and patience to point out why xgsjx is wrong, because I think he's pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Sometime I think I'm the only fool 65 year old with the same spirit for gigging I had when I was 12. I'd be in heaven if I had gigs 4 nights a week. I love late nights, love the club bar scene, love the money and most of all the attention. I must have signed 5 CDs and several gig posters this past Saturday night. I love that kind of stuff. Blue

Yes it's a looky-likey. With regard to the mod, weirdly I have carved up my older Telebass because it is more road-worn and had been modded anyway for another pickup but the Blueflower is all pristine and it feels sacrilegious to start digging away at it! I have the tools, routers and the skills. As you say, I will know it is there, even if it is obscured. I have another pickup which may be a bit hotter and would have no qualms about swapping that but harming those flowers seems cruel. They are real flowers....

TBH almost every broadcast radio station tends to repeat itself. Stick with 6 Music for a couple of weeks and you'll be just as fed up with hearing the same songs over and over.

Of course, that's different - guitarists have always been a lot more deluded than bass players. Anyway, I've got a brand new car and it's made me a really good driver, so there!

The Blues Brothers!

But in face to face spoken communication no one would be allowed to ramble on like the OP. It would be broken up into more digestible/intelligible chunks by questions and other interruptions. And informal shouldn't also mean incomprehensible.

For me GAS : 1: Its the hope that the next thing is better than the existing thing and might make me play and sound better than the last thing with less effort on my behalf to make that so, because the new thing is that much better. Some things I see in the basses and bass equipment for sale ads instigate an instance " Maybe if I get that I could get, or at least close to, that sound that ........ gets. " Like watching Tal Wilkenfield and wanting a Sadowsky or Marcus and wanting a MM Jazz and so on. Its like there could be some instant fix to bass tone problems that the regular gig throws up due to the room ect ect. 2: Its purley being inquisitive. You don't know till you try so you must try. 3: Nostalgia That's my take on it. A story....true story. ( Sorry its one of my essays) A few weeks ago I went to check out a Status I'd seen advertised. I was curious to see what it would be like more than anything and the price was well within reach. The GAS for it was probably because I've seen and heard many a good player use one to great effect so there was a bit of "if it works for all those guys..." Anyway it turned out it wasn't for me and my GAS for that particular model has been satisfied. Whilst I was there the seller casually mentions he has a few Wals, an Alembic and few other top shelf basses hanging around and would I like to check em out? I'm now fearful of a GAS overload and maybe I'd better not. It could be depressing going home to my trusty Jazz having played these. But the result was I actually didnt like the 4 or 5 string Wals, the Alembic or the 4 string Status. I liked the 5 string Status from a certain point of view but not enough that I really needed one in my life any time soon. All of these basses would have up to that point been on my wish list and any bassporn pictures of them would have me drooling. I was completely not taken aback with any of them. If anything I found them surprisingly uninspiring. All these years wanting any one of these. I left there feeling quite good about it. I am not suggesting in any way these are bad basses, just not what I personally expected them to be. They could be sonic Nirvana and the bass of a life time for some or most but TBH I prefer my Fender over them. Maybe when I was younger I wouldn't have known the difference because I didn't have the experience or knowledge about what works for me best. Neck width, balance, string height, weight ect... probably wouldn't have bothered me back then. I would have in my early days of bassingdom , fuelled by GAS, usually because its the latest thing in bass fashion, taken an instrument and struggled to get it to sound like I thought it would sound and moved it on when it didn't. I wouldn't of known about how the width of a neck can help or hinder me or that active is not really my thing back then. Same thing with amps and cabs.

I like the idea of the 'Drag' control. - I'd love to be able to adjust the flamboyance of my stage costume mid song.

There may be a few reasons why your luthier can't get the action any lower. The fact he hasn't told you what his reason is on your bass might indicate he's either: 1 - Not interested in working on your bass. 2 - Not much good at communicating. 3 - Lacks skills. Problems that can limit how low the action can go can include: 1 - The nut being high - solution: file the slots. 2 - The bridge won't adjust low enough - solution - shim the neck. 3 - Lowering the action further causes fret rattle. This can be because the tops of the frets are uneven (as discussed earlier in this thread) - solution level the frets. 4 - Truss-rod problems meaning the relief can't be set low enough. Solution - work to address this issue, which may mean major work. We can't really say a lot more about this without seeing the bass. A Yamaha bass should be pretty well made, for a mass-produced production line item made by people who've been trained to do the job to meet a need of the factory to work to a defined specification level. The problem with any bass made in these conditions is nobody who made your bass is actually a luthier. Wood is wood. Yamaha may buy good wood but wood moves in the process of drying out and aging and a visit to a good luthier may be needed from time to time. This is especially true if the bass you picked up is a "Friday night" item from the production line. As I said in an earlier post; taking it to an experienced Basschatter, who knows basses might be a good start. Here's the thread with a list:

'Chemical Weapons, fine. Nukes, great. But even in the face of utter destruction we will never stoop to deploying weapons such as these against our enemies'.

Is it good for metal?

"We will dominate the world... of table tennis"

Perhaps, but sadly a complete non-starter for me; since to learn said basslines would involve also having to endure Morrissey's voice. In short; a step way too far.

I liked Gladiator by Hans Zimmer and particularly the tracks with Lisa Gerard on. Blackhawk Down was also in the same vein.

"For sale my beloved <bass/amp/cab etc.>"

A couple of week ago I bought a fun little (lefty) Harley Benton PB-Shorty. I liked this little bass a lot (after having put in a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder), 30 inch scale while all other dimension are similar to a Precission Bass. It got me thinking of wanting one with Jazz Bass pickups, given that this is not available I decided to convert one myself, this is my little rebuild diary. Orderer another to do this conversion. After it arrived I found out that this second one was nowhere near as well made as the first one. Well whatever is wrong or I don't like will be fixed along the way. (The second PB-Shorty is the one in the back) For this conversion I'm going to use a set off Jazz Bass pickups I have laying around that came from one of my Squier VM's after I put Chi-Sonic's in that one. For controls I prefer volume/balance/tone, these three controls will be on the top and I am going to ad a sidejack. The conversion and fixing begins: The tuners needed realigning, they were mounted rather sloppy, not at an straight angle and also misaligned from each other. Before modifying. Filling the holes with toothpicks and CA glue. After the glue hardened I just cut of the toothpicks and leveled them with a sharp chisel, re-drilled the holes and mounted the tuners again. And after modifying, mounted straight. There were also a lot of sharp fret ends, well they are gone now. On a more positive note, the neck is made out of a piece flatsawn maple. First real sawdust. Drilled the hole for the sidejack. And jackplate in place. Routing and new pickguard. Routed the pickup cavities and made a new pickguard (mint green, the protective foil is still on, it doesn't look at its best right now). Shielding. Applied shielding and mounted the bridge pickup.

I’m in the wilderness at the minute. Not too bothered. will sort something once the new baby is settled. It wont be covers and I will gig once in a blue moon. I’ve done my late nights and beer soaked pedal boards. Just don’t care for it much.

How are you finding the DRs? Quite fancy a set of they fancy neon jobbies.

And a huge help you have all been too, thank you guys! Much appreciated!

Yorkville/Traynor is a Canadian company that's been around since the 1960s. Back then they were one of the brands to consider if you couldn't afford Fender or Ampeg. The BC line is long discontinued. The Eminence drivers they used were no more 'custom' than anyone's, which is to say not much different, if at all, than off the shelf. FWIW anyone can get a 'custom' Eminence, you just need to buy at least 50 of them.

Mine matches my Markbass head.

@Dad3353 - very appropriate username with those jokes!

Is this any cop? http://www.tolvan.com/index.php?page=/basta/basta.php

Or a piece of cardboard thick enough to block the battery. Or a small tissue bag.

The guitarist in a band I was in years ago always hankered after an Aria guitar he’d seen Andy Summers playing. The model in question was, according to him, an ‘Aria Proll’ (rhymed with ‘doll’). Still makes me smile whenever I see an Aria Pro II.

Guitard to bass player: ‘I will put my volume down so I can hear you better’

Mine was 21 weeks in all, including holidays over xmas and new year. Worth every second of the wait.

Ha ha, I remember posting once that I found Zender's playing inspirational and receiving a similar response from you Nik! Consistency is a virtue! Horses for courses mate, there's something about the way he phrases that's quite magical, as is suggested by the OP, it ain't the notes, it's playing them right that's the problem.

The cultural context of TOTP was very different. We all watched it and we all talked about it. Now there is very little commonality in our media experiences and I think we have lost something as a consequence. Twelve year olds don't discuss pop music any more. Too much porn available.

On the flip side, a CD would cost me £15, now I have access to an almost limitless amount of music for £9.99 a month. Progress my friend!

There's some excellent bass playing waiting for you when you get there.

Its like drumming on a bass,two things going on the simple version sounds more convincing,i think its the pressure of opening the song with it as well ,ha!

Did you ever try slapping with flats ? The OP wants to slap à la Mark King, so flatwounds are certainly the worst choice... Please read from the beginning before answering.

My TB500 came home yesterday. Required lots of repairs, email from Mikko: Hi. Just to let you know your Terror Bass 500 has been repaired and is ready to be sent back to you as soon as we've received payment. There were a few things wrong with your amplifier. The front of the amplifier had suffered some damage, the control panel was slightly bent and 3 control pots were snapped from the circuit board. They were still making slight contact so the controls were still sort of functional but that's where all that crackling was coming from. There was also a filter capacitor in the power supply circuit that had snapped off the board and it was making all sorts of crazy pops when turning the amp to standby or off. I've sorted all of this out, calibrated the clock frequencies and cleaned the pots and contacts. The total cost of the repair including labour, parts, shipping + VAT amounts to £47.40. You can pay this via debit/credit card or PayPal by calling our sales team on 0208 905 2828. Have to say, what a fab experience with Orange 👍

Picked it this morning,looks fabulous,and it’s going to be a straight forward refret

They’re definitely not to be avoided!! Serious gear and great guys @Ashdown Engineering . My ABM 900 eventually got swapped out for a MAG 300 for a ‘fatter’ sound believe it or not. They have different versions of for example 1x15 cabs - different voicings (and sizes, etc). I chose 4 early Klystron 15” cabs because the ABM 15”s were bit middly in comparison. Well worth trying Ashdown gear out. 👍🏻 http://ashdownmusic.com/artists/113/J-Capachino-Carter/

A seminal one for me - Magazine's 2nd album "Secondhand daylight", Barry Adamson at his funky and melodic peak. Mick Karn obviously well represented in previous posts but I'll mention again - just because. Technically much of his best playing IMHO was on "Gentlemen take Polaroids" (not so far mentioned), but "Quiet life" remains my favourite.

Temporary attached all the components to check if everything fits inside the cavity and how the string align over the pickup pole-pieces. Looks good, next step is shielding and sorting out the wiring.

Routed the cavity for the pickup. And battery box.

And more shielding. Mounted the neck pickup, made a shim (the saddles are a tad to low without to my liking), mounted the neck and put on some strings to check the alignment of everything. Not bad.