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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!

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

One of these came up near me at a good price and I just couldn't resist! I've heard all the positive feedback they get here, and on TB, so GAS curiosity got the better of me. Its a 2005 from the Peerless factory and is in pretty good shape apart from the odd ding here and there. I've been playing it for the past few hours and it produces quite the lovely mwamp with flats on it 😁

It's gotta match my outfit and the beer I'm drinking.

This is the sort of thread that makes me want to take all of my Badass and similar bridges off my basses in protest at the rubbish people talk about them All joking aside, I've high-mass bridges on three of my basses and I'm quite happy to say that they make little difference that matters to me. I suspect that on my two FLs there's a possible positive effect on sustain, but I'm not convinced, and even if it is the case, I doubt it makes any difference to my tone or my playing. As per the 'Bassists Obsessed with Sustain' thread, my old Wal FL didn't sustain at all, and it sounded glorious, snarlier than a Rottweiler in a cat farm

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

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.

Am I the only one? I really like the BBOT bridge, engineering simplicity and elegance. Yes it can be improved, Peavey (and others) have some grooves for the grub screws to prevent lateral movement. Another (simple) useful improvement would be the ability to top load the strings rather than feed them through the hole.

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

I think it has to do with the changing perception of short scale basses. To elaborate further, if you look back to the 70s a lot of budget basses were short scale, there was Kay, Jedson, Columbus and a couple of others, pretty much all of the output from Kay, Jedson and Columbus was poorly made junk, microphonic pickups, cheaper than cheap machine heads, dreadful bridges, terrible electrics. Even Fender during that period in time seemed to treat the short scale with a degree of contempt with the (IMO) dreadful Musicmaster bass that was usually put together from the leftover parts from other models like for example the strat pickup that was under the black pickup cover. Then there was the false perception that short scale automatically meant mud, this was largely a result of the kind of basses that were short scale that were available , the above mentioned basses were tonally limited due to their cheap electronics combined with the flatwound strings and the poor amplification of the time, this perception was not helped by the Gibson EB0 and EB3 that had massively overwound pickups and the trend of those times for short scale basses to be hollow or semi hollow. Fast forward to nowadays and the sands of time have helped for those perceptions to be largely forgotten, a lot of the people now playing bass don't have memories of learning on those dreadful cheap basses of the 70's and the short scale basses that are around nowadays are far superior because to put it simply people expect better nowadays and it is now possible to make better instruments nowadays and so people are trying these basses and finding that they are actually more comfortable to play than long scale basses (for most people ymmv etc) and actually sound pretty damn good which of course drives demand for more short scale basses. Controversial perhaps but I would be willing to bet that the Squier Jaguar ss bass has played a large part in the resurgance of the short scale

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

And my favourite male voice.

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!

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

Paul Rodgers, awesome vocals and still has it nowadays.

All qualities united. What a career..!

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.

As it was raining today I've chucked something together. Probably should have given myself more time to learn how to play in 23/8... still, that will probably be a first for the composition challenge, if nothing else. Will check the mix after Strictly 😓 It's not very good

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

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

In 1977, a recording of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was included on a golden disc sent to space with the Voyager mission. Many life forms in the universe were lucky enough to hear Chuck's finest moment. However, someone must've lobbed a CD of Motorhead up into the big black sometime in the 80s because it certainly inspired Illegal Alien. Led by frontbeing Lem-Mi, Illegal Alien are The Hardest Working Band in the Cosmos. And, one of the hardest to listen to. Enjoy or endure, the decision is yours!

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.