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Just picked up an(other) Ibanez SR... SR400B-CW... 2015 Reg, and my googling and perusing of the Ibanez US and EU Brochures, have drawn me to the conclusion that this was a US model... So not Rare as such, more Less Familiar... Claro Walnut (CW) top on Mahogany body, SR4 Neck Maple and Rosewood, Rosewood Board. Needs a good clean and hopefully i can restore some luster to the top and headstock.

Spotted this on Gumtree a few days ago, picked it up this eve. £30 with a straight neck - what could possibly go wrong?! I’m planning on stripping it back (or probably just sanding for a refinish as it’s probably ply-bodied). Maybe oly white with a mint guard? We’ll see…

An interesting article here about the most recorded bassist in jazz. Still going strong at 86. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/03/ron-carter-jazz-bassist-miles-davis-aretha-franklin-roberta-flack-interview

I don't doubt that you could have done a much better job than Peter Jackson & Co. and Lennon/McCartney & Co., but I don't think it's bad as it is. And I am pretty sure they were thinking a humorous goodbye and thank you, sprinkled with equal measures sentimental nostalgia. I understand why some would find it too sentimental or too silly though, but while while definitely fully intentionally being both silly and sentimental, and arguably not exactly being genius, I think it actually does work for what it is. It could have been worse, they could have used clips from "Meet the Feebles" and "Bad Taste".

What about the Pawn Shop? If they were selling it for $70 then they gave some poor sod under half that.

Well I finally got round to picking mine up from the shop... Straight out of the box, the finish and set up were superb. Action was pretty much exactly how I like it anyway, intonation was spot on and very little adjustment required. The Sherwood Green is stunning. Easily one of the nicest finishes I've ever seen on a bass. ever. not a mark or blemish anywhere. Lovely pickguqrd too. Frets are smooth, no sharp edges or anything untoward anywhere. However, it weighs a ton! let's get that bit out of the way! Easily on par with some of my 70's Precisions. Brought an empty SKB case to the store to bring it home but alas, its a wonky shaped beggar too. Will NOT fit in anything P/J/MM shaped as the body is quite a bit wider. Doesn't fit any of my Coffin Cases either. Only thing i have to fit it is an older G&G Fender case that my Jag currently occupies. So off to go case shopping in the next few weeks, though no rush as this will be my couch bass for a bit anyway lol. Got it back to the office in it's box. Very well packed too. Not long home with it but already been through the SVT, the VBA400 and the PF rigs. Wow, what a unique sounding bass. Puts me in mind of my Thunderbird Studio IV. Quite versatile, tone control seems to be nice and sensitive. The pickup selector switch as the faintest click noise but nothing I can't live with. And i suspect I may have to touch up the solder on the input jack as it has the finest crackle as the jack plug moves about with the cable. May swap out the switch for something higher quality later on and add some more shielding (I do that with lots of my instruments anyway) But yes, very impressed. Definitely a bargain. Don't think I'll be parting with this one for a while, if ever.

Sounds like an Oasis rip-off to me...

here's the vid

"Early in ZZ Top's career" = 1969 to 1975 or thereabouts. Before Reverb and even before eBay and even before ludicrous Fender fetishisation.

Croaker - Joy Division* *edit - I see now how this might look. No unkindness intended. I was innocently thinking about frogs just to clarify. 🐸

I've recently bought one of these and I love it. the compressor does add a nice tubey grit and it's bloody loud (maybe more so than my Mk1 Terror!)

Ribbit ～ Chas & Dave

Sorry to be irritating… I’ll maybe clarify… the new Beatles release, for me, is more listenable to than a lot of what passes for modern music in the world outside of my comfort zone… Cardi B’s song WAP being a particularly fine example of this juxtaposition. However, it is not such a fine specimen of the Beatles canon, that it stands up to scrutiny against a track of theirs that I happen to like… in this example - Helter-skelter. 😘

Oh well, the sad but inevitable end is here. A couple of nights ago (at a rehearsal, thankfully not a gig) my RedSub BT5110, which has given me 11 years 8 months of loud fun, has finally broken down. Turned up beyond about half way it starts outputting a very loud, repetitive thump through the speakers, like maybe 4/5 times a second. For a couple of months now it had been getting cranky and overly warm, headphone output stopped working, cut out one time at the end of an (admittedly stupidly hot) gig. Gutted, but it's been a lot of fun for £300. Owes me absolutely nothing. I might look into getting it repaired, but I think I'll be taking this opportunity to refresh my amplification. Needs have changed - the removable head/combo thing I haven't really used for a long time now so I'm not tied to the idea - another cab and a small but powerful head is where I'm thinking of heading. Raise a glass to the RedSub BT5110 - the "Ricky Hatton of bass amps" (quoting some review I read) is dead. RIP.

I quite like it. I mean it is not exactly a master piece or among the best Beatles songs ever, but very far from among their worst either. Better than the 2 other posthumous John Lennon Beatles songs from the mid 90's for sure, and all in all a really nice song. From the receptions it gets in this thread it very much sounds to me like some people are listening to this through a filter of preconceptions. Also funny George Harrison called it pure crap, cause to me it actually sounds more like a George Harrison song than a John Lennon song.

Earlpilanz on eBay. Lots of happy customers on basschat!

ground and pound from lusithand is back aswell as the idiotbox blackout fuzz gnp into the blackout sounds so good!! Basically rat into dual big Muff you can’t go wrong can you!

Nice interview etc in the Grauniad with Ron Carter, who at 86 is still working and touring. Long time Miles Davis collaborator he’s also played on some big hits in the pop world as well as his own albums. Well worth a read even if you never listen to or play jazz. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/03/ron-carter-jazz-bassist-miles-davis-aretha-franklin-roberta-flack-interview

As has been said before, this thread is often an opportunity to let of a bit of steam, we don't necessarily post about the typical services where things go OK. As a contrasting example: Last Saturday almost everyone involved in worship at our church got together for the morning for one of the periodic sessions to reflect on the worship at our church. The theme this time was "excellence". I missed it, being out of the country, but I copy here the short version notes on band prep. This is pretty much what we do anyway. I'm not posting this to say "hey we're great", just to show that it's not all doom and dismay at the coal-face of Church music!

Ha ha, no fighting though - didn’t you know we’re all sh*t on here? 😆

Golden Retriever - Super Furry Animals

Doggy Dirt ～ Z.Z.Top

French kissin' in the USA - Debbie Harry

I am equally talented at those things. 😬

I would think it was gathering dust on a wall and generating little interest. There is no context to this story. Maybe it was 60 years ago in an agricultural one horse town where $70 was acceptable for an item nobody had much use for?

1: Laziness 2: Because he was already making over 100% profit on whatever he took the bass in for. Just like every other pawnshop.

Because at that time old P basses weren't very valuable.

I don't want to wear no dead mans boots!

It was early on, maybe they were not that privileged at that point?

This is an interesting discussion and, to muddy the waters further in regard to running plugins on hardware (or indeed running any firmware on dedicated hardware): I had a long discussion with a brand a while ago about two pieces of hardware they were selling. Both devices appeared to have the same menus system and library of effects. The more expensive device could run three effects at once (a physically larger unit too) whilst the cheaper and much smaller device could run five. Did this make the cheaper device the better unit? Despite the architecture being similar, the "programs" running were less detailed and presented less load on the processor in the cheaper device, thus it was able to run more "effects" at once. To misquote Mr Malmsteen, sometimes "more is more" is, well.. not.. My take away.. Early hardware just didn't have processing power to do the work and the software algorithms (such as Neural learning) just didn't exist to the extent that it does today. This resulted in lower quality effects in comparison (but let's not forget this was cutting edge at the time!!) The best hardware in the world doesn't guarantee a faithful reproduction of the analogue world, the software on board is as important, if not more so. Trying to squeeze a big processor in to a little box is difficult and costly. I am sure there's an equivalent to Hoffman's Iron Law when it comes to DSP, "size", quality and cost! Eventide's H9000 springs to mind. That said I am truly astonished at what is being created in open source world. "Steve Ack";s Neural Amp Modeller plug-in is absolutely incredible.. the developers around this desktop application aren't taking any payment for it and the Neural models people are creating are just superb.

The Hulla band is playing at their local village hall tomorrow night as a thank you to the village, who have supported the band with gigs and the ongoing use of the hall as a rehearsal room and occasional venue. This will be one of those fun gigs - is themed on Halloween/Day of the Dead so there'll be fancy dress on and off stage. The band is a not-for-profit thing, raising money for local charities including a contribution to the upkeep of the hall and this year we've raised more than £7000. A large part of that went into funding a minibus for the local primary school - being a rural community, transport is a costly part of their budget. The set list is as varied as the individuals in the band, ranging from 'Country Roads' (the first song they ever learnt when it was just a social gathering rather than a full band, and well before I joined) to Dakota (which was quite subdued until I started playing it with a flanger and a pick 😂). As it's local to almost everyone (the drummer and I have a 30 minute commute each way but everyone else walks), there'll be a good atmosphere and it'll probably go on well into the night. We played a festival in the summer and the set list was well over 4 hours with a ten minute break. So although my main bass for the night will be my Sterling 34HH, I have a much lighter headless as an option should the back and shoulders start to sag. 😃

Task specific equipment always beats general stuff. You need 8GB of RAM just to write a letter in Word using a PC. But the moon landing guidance system only needed 128K of ROM. A digital pedal can't run Word and it doesn't need to, or any other general use. It only needs to do 1 thing exceptionally well.

Art For Arts Sake - 10CC

Tonight we play Bannerman's in Edinburgh!

I’m not as bad as I used to be (but still pretty bad): SWR SM1500 SWR Marcus Miller pre + SWR Amplite power amp Ashdown Geezer Butler signature ‘Head of Doom’ Ashdown ABM 400 1x15 neo combo TC Electronics BG250 208 combo

Well, the code would need to be ported over to whatever hardware’s in the pedal. But the hardware in the pedal would have been chosen for this task. But I don’t think they’d code a new emulation from scratch when they already have such a good one! These digital pedals are all computer codes running on a chip, and they’re usually available as plugins too (Helix, Tonex etc) that are cross-compatible. The car engine analogy doesn’t really work. Not saying the Cali76 etc isn’t good! But the UA is probably more accurate to a real 1176. But who cares about accuracy really.

As a standalone song, it's nothing special, though I can't say I disliked it. It reflects the restrictions under which it was made. It's ok. As an endeavour by a couple of friends to close a circle, so to speak, honouring another couple of friends, and what they did to finally complete a song using what sounds like little more than 30 seconds of abysmally recorded original material, I found it quite moving.

I've ordered some m5 countersunk bolts, some m5 threaded inserts and solid cup washers. £20 for 20 sets so cheaper per set than the 'dedicated' stuff.

There's a short & not particularly in-depth 'making of' thing about the song here: Seems it's McCartney playing the slide guitar.

I would first check the frets. I suspect that there are a few high/unlevel ones. Almost every instrument that I get to work on, needs fret work.

So I took a drive from Bromley up to Cambridge to a meet up and buy from Mike. Lovely chap. I am now the proud owner of my 2nd Walsh Bitsa P bass! What an amazing bass. Thanks Mike!