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I think my first audition made the band giggle. They're a covers band that will cover anything from gossip to audioslave to GnR. I had never been in a band before, and was terrified turning up to the audition. I'd played the bass for years, at home.... When I get there the bassist before me was just tearing down his 2 4x10 rig with Trace head and I immediately thought "shi what am I doing?" I place my 25 watt peavey practice combo next to it and tell the other bassist I was ready to bring the thunder - we have a laugh. I take my guitar out of its bag. Did I forget to mention I didn't actually own my own bass? It's my sister's that I stole years ago and it still has pink ribbons on the case. Anyway... I play my heart out and barely get heard over the thunderous drums. I place my tiny amp in a corner at head height to allow us to just about hear me and somehow I get the gig! We've just booked our 8th gig in July in front of 200 festival goers.

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Oh bollards, I put Sir first time and quickly changed it, no point changing it back, I’ve already pi55ed in my chips.

Well just picked one of these beauty up of ebay, oh man it just a beauty sound wise in real good condition its obviously live a charmed life, how much you ask I won for princely sum of £44.00 pounds , get in, happy as pig in stinky poo

These are the two fretboards I'll be using on the twins. As I mentioned before they are not wood but Rocklite a wood substitute made from wood fibres impregnated with resin. One is an Ebony and the other Rosewood substitutes, I think they are very impressive, they even have actual grain just like the real thing. I've wet the Rosewood version to show how it will react to an oil finish

I thought maybe a posh one might have a cravat and paisley smoking jacket and a common one is just wearing Burberry check (sorry I’m just being facetious) The macassar ebony veneer does sound really nice (that’s what I’ve got planned for my 5 string single cut build)

This morning I opened the new bearing cutter, a very impressive looking thing it is, it has a split bearing at the shank end, I suppose it can be used in a restricted space? Who knows but it worked well enough, probably the best bearing cutter I've used so a bargain all in all I also re planed the wood for the top down to 21.25mm (I need 20mm eventually) and jointed it and glued it up. It is sat there now until the morning when I'll plane it flat on one side and glue them to the backs ready for the final bits of shaping etc.

Done. Nice to see an online community working like this, cockles, heart etc.

Done. Glad to help. Not a pleasant story and I hope the scammer gets what he deserves.

Glad your little one is doing well!

Ironic.

Well, my other P sold so I’m gonna keep hold of this for now and see if I’m afforded some more time to play now Iris is home and doing well. I am however going to go the route of making it less black rather than a refinish. Just while I’m making sure. All mods will be reversible.

It comes down to what 'better' actually encompasses. Super smooth, refined, hi-fi sound quailty might not be what some players are looking for, while for others it might be top of the wish-list. Over the last couple of years I've abandoned any prejudice against Far Eastern equipment in the face of overwhelming evidence that there's some excellent, affordable gear out there (which currently comprises most of my instruments).

The only bit of potentially useful info I can give is that when bluesparky sadly missed of this parish was very ill and out of work a charity for musicians helped him greatly, some of us donated to this charity and they checked out as a good legit bunch, they are there to help people who have done their bit as pro players, they may even be able to assist with the medical treatment, they will be named in this thread somewhere. Best wishes.

Not all plain sailing though. I remember when he was jilted.

Fleet (Hampshire) A bit of a departure, this one. Week #1 DDD is the singer who wants to put together an Elvis Presley / Buddy Holly band. Now I've been here before, and I know (from bitter experience) that you can't put together the band and then look for Elvis ... a bit cart-before-the-horse that way. So here I am with the Elvis I need, he already has a drummer, I play bass, all we need is a guitarist, how difficult can this be? DDD says "let's catch up after Easter". I ask him for some YouTube of his own performance. Week #2 DDD sends me YouTube links of him fronting a serious holiday-camp-style 60s tribute act, full matching silver suits, the whole thang. There's not much of it, but he can certainly sing. He can't find a guitarist, do I know anyone? The email ping-pong continues, I suggest we meet face-to-face and have a chat over a beer, maybe even jam through some of the proposed material. Week #3 DDD wants to hook up but can't do so for a week or two. He starts copying the drummer on the emails. Have I found a guitarist yet? I'm currently chasing FIVE of the buggers. Week #4 DDD circulates a short list of a dozen songs, six each by Elvis and Buddy. I've found just one guitarist who seems to be up for this. We all agree to meet the following Friday. Week #5 My guitarist is up for it, but needs another week to prepare. Week #6 My guitarist is no longer my guitarist. He's decided to stick to bedroom widdling. At least he has a more realistic view of his abilities than most guitarists I've met. Week #7 DDD says he will try again to find a guitarist. I make supportive noises whilst quietly thinking "Game Over, move to radio silence". Week #10 (yes, 10) Things get surreal. DDD emails out of the blue - would I be interested in playing a charity gig on Sunday during the BH weekend? My reply was, and I quote: Deano can apparently bring in both a guitarist and a keyboard player. It's a MacMillans Cancer support gig at a big pub in Fleet. That's all I know. There's nothing on the Web about it and the pub is closed for refurbishment. Several days of email ping-pong follow between the three of us regarding whether or not there will be a PA, will there even be microphones, is back line provided, etc. What could possibly go wrong? Halfway through, Deano adds a fourth person to the email trail - who he? Is he a guitarist? Is he a keyboards player? Week #11 Silvie and I drive down to Fleet. We're taking no chances ... we've left the van fully loaded from Friday night's gig, with complete PA, bass rig, etc. in case we turn up to find a child's karaoke set being used as the PA. And yes, I've seen it done. At the venue we are greeted by the sound of very loud, very live music. There's a large beer garden alongside the car park, a very serious PA is in use complete with proper sound engineer, and the band before us are a professional functions band. Hmmmmmm. Whatever next. I meet the others for the first time. Deano and Roy (the drummer) are relaxed, the 'guitarist' is laid back to the point of limbo-dancing under toilet doors. I say "You're the guitarist, right?" and he replies "Actually I'm a bass player who dabbles in guitar". Oh dear. I ask him if he's worked through the set list. He says he looked at it briefly last night. "But what about the key changes and so on?", I ask him. "What key changes?", he says. Oh dear, oh dear. "Are you going to be OK?", I ask him. "I'll be fine" he says, "I can play anything, and I play harmonica too, and of course I'll sing a few of these. If I'm in doubt, I'll just copy what the other guitarist does". Oh dearie dearie me. We set up on stage and - inevitably - the layout requires me to stand between the two guitarists. In the event it probably doesn't matter, since the sound guy turns down the guitarist as soon as he hears him play. So, how did my audition go? Judge for yourselves - here's the edited highlights with all the cockups skilfully and surgically removed:

Cheeky interim purchase before my ACG arrives. Cheers Jonze! This is a 2006 CIJ Mustang, always fancied one, and the wife has a couple of bass gigs (she plays a Mustang guitar), so made sense! Liking the Fiesta Red more than I thought I would, but was the right price, so don’t care either way! Cleaned up the fingerboard (needed a little TLC), fitted some La Bella Mustang Flatwounds, overall a very cool bass Si

What a bass and what a location. Do you live in the eighteenth century, by any chance..?

I’ve not noticed any latency. I was a little apprehensive about it & had until recently, used a decent usb A-B cable. Many DJs & electronica musicians use a laptop these days. They rarely have any issues if using decent kit. The laptop & interface sit on a stand or small table next to the Seaboard, so the only thing that’s near them is me. I use a decent jack to jack from the interface to my rig. Tbh, things can & sometimes do go wrong with instruments, hardware synths can fail, amps can fail (I’ve had that too). There’s many big name bands using laptops. Devo used nothing but 4 laptops a few years ago. Yes, they probably had plenty of back up, but thenguitar based bands have backup guitars too.

Not so much an in-depth review, but two videos giving an overview of the features of the bass micro synth and a run-through of EHX's suggested settings which give you an idea of the range of sounds that the pedal can produce:

Every studio recording with the possible exception of the most basic of home demos will be compressing the bass at some point, whether or not the bassist in question has compressor in their personal signal chain. Also every bass player's sound will be subject to some form of compression if: 1. They have one or more valves in their signal chain. 2. They use an effect or amplifier with a "drive" control. 3. Their bass sound also goes through the PA.

Bass-less grindcore this afternnon - Insect Warfare followed by Wormrot

Mustang has arrived!

Thanks to everyone who has donated this will really help us cushion the hit we are going to take, really appreciated you are all legends

See that nun? she's his sister...

Can I suggest you add Turmeric to your daily diet and see if that helps at all whilst waiting for any NHS treatment? It's known to have anti-inflammatory properties and is an anti-oxidant. If you do a bit of googling you'll see it's a popular natural supplement to help those that suffer from arthritis/joint problems. I know firsthand of some elderly folk that use it with positive effects. You can either get the natural powder stuff and add it to dishes/make turmeric tea, or just buy capsules from health shops/Amazon. Just be aware that it also acts as a natural blood thinner so not recommended if you're taking any medication for that.

To be fair to him, Tom has simply put the amount of work into his basses that he deems to be necessary. Everything else, be it hype or hyperbole is other peoples doing! The man simply builds basses and has priced them at a point where he can earn a living and not kill himself doing it. Good luck to him, he's a lovely guy and very good at what he does. Think they're too expensive? Don't buy one.......if you can find one for sale Si

i just put new strings on my elite yesterday and fell in love with it all over again... ...recording incoming!

I'd concur that it is. It's a wonderful thing, just a short nose in front of Cheap Trick at Budokan.

Yes I have owned this very same head The Basic 350 ( No Limiter) & it has a Smooth' Rich' Tone to it.. but I found it to be under-powered So' using the Stereo 800 would make perfect sense ( Even tho when I look at this picture my lower back says Forget It' for that is seriously heavy' right there) even the settings you have are very similar to what I favoured... But I moved it on for a SM900' which in turn I moved on also...because of the weight & when you start fiddling around with six bands of parametric' well need I say more? Overkill. I settled with an SM400 which I use bridged... for myself it is the SWR AMP' with all its faults it delivers that sound which we all love...

That look from you at 0:40 says it all!

Thank you and thank you to everyone for being so giving and supporting this, this place is full of wonderful people

Done, good luck with the rest of the funds.

Done. Is it worth posting a link to the page here rather than the original post? https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/musician-scammed-out-of-valuable-instrument/? Ralph

Done

...current working title of my autobiography, there.

Yes I think he has learned a lesson, don't swap a £350 chapman for a dodgy bitsa in the first place!

Mick KARN here :

It can be cheaper to diy, but only if you don't count your own time. That's where you'd be crucified by a custom builder.