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Couldn't agree more. The obvious example of this is the yearly cycle of mobile phone releases that millions sign up to. Never mind the fact there hasn't been any meaningful advance in what a phone can actually do in about 5-10 years. It's just a slightly better camera and more useless gimmicks. This extends to so many differing products in our daily lives.

IMO, the finest female voice ever to have graced the planet. Absolutely peerless and such a sad demise.

A big part of this is the convenience/use and replace culture as well. We're sold that idea that if something requires less effort it's a good thing, and that is something stops working, we should replace it. This is happening with music gear in so many areas from lightweight and non-repairable amplification, to studio hardware that goes loco when Apple or Microsoft change something (I sold an interface for £60 this morning that cost almost £2000 twenty years ago, which still works perfectly, which has decent preamps, functionality etc but which will not work with a computer or software made much after 2010), and don't get me started on the lunacy of data cable upgrades. I'm a cyclist as well, my Dad had the same Campagnolo groupset on his bike for over 30 years, he could always buy the right bolts, washers, springs, even quite esoteric parts if something started to wear. Bikes are crazy now, if something breaks, you buy a new one, which for a wheel can be £1,000!!!!! there's guys who are 3 stone overweight paying £10,000 for a bike because its 2lbs lighter than last year's model, for brakes that are actually less good in many conditions (disk breaks on high speed road bikes), because this is how the manufacturers get people to buy new gear - 'no-one's riding calliper brakes/26" wheels/manual gears any more". I forget who said it, but it was a reflection from one of the US Psychologists in the early 20th century who was involved in the systematic application of the psychology of the subconscious to sales and marketing (and politics); "We changed the way governments viewed their people, changing the expectation that they move from being good citizens to being good consumers". Yvon Choinard, the founder of Patagonia (a very switched-on company who repair their own and other manufacturer's mountain clothing free of charge) put it beautifully "In a world of limited resources, there's nothing clever about being a consumer". So this is why I love this thread, because to a degree whilst it celebrates gear that I love for doing what it does the way it does it, it's also about not simply accepting at face value the idea that everything has to be the way the marketing departments want it to be A very personal opinion, others are of course entitled to say "Beedster, you're talking stinky poo"

A picture of an installed bass bridge EVO5 ....

My amp back from Ashdown all serviced , thrilled with the results

No mate, you are exactly right. One of the more perceptive posts I have ever seen on BC. We have reached the point where technology exceeds need and requires to artificially create a demand that doesn't exist. For example, do we need driverless cars? But the technology is there and there is money to be made, so there will be a massive push for it to happen. Meanwhile we are accelerating a disposable culture to facilitate these unnecessary advances. I am obviously in favour of meaningful scientific / technological advances. But too often things are being pushed on us, not because they improve our life, but because it is a way of selling unnecessary products to us.

Ach...i pulled the trigger on the white Ian Hill it arrives Monday, s'posed to be headbanging @ their Glasgow gig tonight so thats my excuse 🙂

Welcome to the October voting thread we have a veritable cornucopia of marvellous magnitude for your auditory consideration. Have a listen to these offerings , all based on the picture chosen by @Dad3353 (Septembers winner) and choose your favourite 3 in order to crown the October Challenge victor These are well worth your time , another quality offering. 1.. @Dad3353 2 @binky_bass 3 @Leonard Smalls 4 @NickD 5 @fingers211 6 @xgsjx 7 @lurksalot 8 @upside downer 9 @adamg67 10 @Nicko 11 @Doctor J 12 @MoonBassAlpha 13 @skankdelvar Well there we have it , a tremendous selection, all worthy of at least one vote , but you have to limit your call to just 3. Good luck to and enjoy your listens. Poll closes at midnight on 31st October

There's too many! 😬 Mostly female. Ella, Etta, Aretha, Diana, Carla, Dusty, Shirly, Whitney, the list goes on... Not so many dudes do it for me... Freddie, Jagger, Bob Marley, Ray Charles, Otis (obviously), Stevie... Hairs stand up on the back of the neck performance! ^^^^^^^ ❤️

Ears, if they like I like. I don’t care about genre, era, band, artist, if the ears approve that’s it. My only filters are I won’t listen to anything extremely political (both sides) or religious. At that point I don’t care how good the music is, the lyrical content tells me no.

And from somewhere else on the amazing spectrum that is music, Steve Marriot:

A voice sadly last to Parkinson's Disease

Oh, and these of course:

Linder is as a god to me. I don't think any of my other heroes have quite such crisp, effortless, fast control of the fingerboard. And what's more he doesn't shred just for the sake of it, just where it's needed. Glad to have met him at the London Bass Show a couple of years ago. Oooh, this is my thousandth post. How exciting.

BTW not a good idea to let a buyer pay by PayPal and then collect, plenty of people have lost out doing that

my favourite vocal. Also Pino P on bass absolutely mind blowing.

The much-missed Sandy Denny ...

Technicians of Spaceship Hawkwind. Followers of Dr. Technical! (one of Brock's many aliases). Back in the early 80s the audience was split roughly into three, leather, labcoats and afghans 🙂 Sadly my afghan got attacked by rats and my labcoat is no more, so when I went to see Hawkwind for the first time in over 25 years last November I bought a NOS one from the 80s and used special fabric crayons to draw the cover of Warrior on the back. To my amazement I was the only person in a thousand or more wearing a labcoat!

All of my 6 instruments are 2nd hand and the most expensive was my Hofner HCT violin bass which was I think £232. The others were around the £150 mark. I have gigged with a £1000 borrowed Fender P special of my brothers but felt very nervous about knocking it or causing damage. So for me I feel comfortable with a cheaper instrument. My basses are still precious and I look after them but a very expensive instrument I find intimidating, I'm too worried about dings. I think I'm the same about cars.

Gear details (and lyrics because I mention Douglas) in spoiler box:

If you want "old school" then maybe one of the Barefaced Two 10 would be your thing. I have a pair of Barefaced One 10s and I think they must sound similar to a single two 10? Anyway, they are superb sounding cabs and LOUD, if that's what you need. No boxy sound at all. Full, deep, thumping and warm sounding and featherweight. Not cheap, but worth the money. Frank.

Here’s my ‘83

It's all in the name. If the band has a cool name, then I will like them.

Such a shame she couldn't live on... 🤔

I listen to it. If I don’t like it, I’ll usually give it another go, maybe a few more goes. Whilst I can’t say there isn’t any subconscious bias (who can?), I always try to like it, try to be open-minded. Why wouldn’t you? Sometimes I try too hard, like with a couple of well-known artists where it took me years to finally admit to myself that I really didn’t like them much.

Dusty. So much great stuff, here's a particular favourite:

Well it’s easy to seem ok for a few minutes.......😉 My two favourite male singers:

Hmmm...another can of paint? Veneering a headstock like this is pretty straightforward, but matching, as you say, would look pretty good...

I've not listened to all yet but the standard is higher than ever. Kudos to the one that sounds like return to forever on a cosmic trip! The picture certainly fired up people's creative juices!

This is the thing, 99% of the time it'll be fine because most people aren't scammers. But it's when you get caught out that it hurts. I'm far to trusting and generally believe that people are good, but I've been stung for a large amount of money in the past and won't let it happen again. It horrible to have to doubt everyone though.

On the grub screw length problem, you can buy shorter ones.

Thought this would be a useful video for many considering the Euro series. So many different variations 😅

All qualities united. What a career..!

Labcoat... I had the 1977 Sonic Assassins 12" Single cover on the back of mine...

I knew you would 🙂

(I know that'll be the never-seen-before box of rotted matchtsicks which once was a bass.)

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's bass. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife's bass, nor his male or female XLR connectors, his amp or his pedal board, nor any gear that belongs to your neighbour. Just Rock What You Got and shake the mountains! " *The distinctly unauthorised EADG version.

You should own a P bass at least once in your life! I’m pretty Sure that’s in the bible too

Listened to Space Ritual almost all day long at live volume. Terrific and amazing record even almost 50 years later...

looks like a bit of a crotch-botherer to me too😃

I can't tell if you're serious or not.. on the off chance you are and I haven't fallen for a leg pull, it seems to be a fairly straightforward heads up to the community of a potential bargain.

I'm gonna skip the multiscale build, we're all about the BASS here am I right? Okay well I decided to make a 5 string. I haven't owned one for quite some time so I figure meh, make my own. Why not? The design for this one was blatantly copied from inspired by the Zon Sonus. I've been a fan of Bill Gould of Faith No More for some years and always wanted one of the basses he's endorsed for so long but Zon basses are like unicorn sh*t in the UK, and cost more than my car. So make my own I must. I'd been wanting to build something from paduak after seeing it at my local hardwood seller so I grabbed some for this project, along with a load of wenge. Here is the neck being assembled. The body I made from a sandwich of cherry and utile (another African mahogany variant). I mused on the headstock shape for quite a while, ans sketched a few ideas before settling. Shown below is everything being glued up and cut to shape. I screwed up on the control cavity by cutting it too close to the body outline. I used a massive roundover bit on the back and it cut into the cavity. I made it work though, with a thick wenge cover plate contoured to match. Also, I settled on a headstock shape but not before screwing it up and cutting the profile too close to the holes. I used some more paduak to turn lemons into lemonade and I must say the final result looks cool as f*ck. I'm using a Warwick Just-A-Nut on this, for convenience if nothing else. Starting on the finishing process here. Getting everything sanded smooth then beginning with the french polishing process. Done! Or am I? Okay no, I wasn't done. Let's wrap this up by stewing on my mistakes. Firstly: neck too big. I pretty much copied the published specs for Warwick's 5-string basses but that resulted in a very baseball bat-like profile. So it went back in the vice for more rasping. Fortunately one major advantage to french polishing is it's very easy to recover if you need to do any extra work like this. Whereas a lacquer finish would be pretty much ruined. Also: Don't use garbage Chinesium hardware. I properly cheaped out on the hardware here. The tuners work but are very not great. And the bridge... When I first strung this up I was getting a horrid high pitched buzz that I couldn't initially track down. Was it the nut? The truss rod? The strings themselves? No, it was the goddamn bridge. I fixed it by banging a shim in there to tighten it up. Also, note how the bridge is hanging over the body carve? That's because I over-carved it, and really should have made the body longer. I fixed that on the next build. Overall this resulted in a pretty damn nice bass albeit with a few niggles. I learned many lessons here, and I actually remembered some of them later!

Still all the tweaking to do, but it is a bass....

I used to have an obsession about swapping any BBOT to something more substantial. I then realised that my basses work for a lving (at least they used to) so in the context of a band I could never hear a difference so I stopped doing it.