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Update... I checked the tracking this morning and was surprised to see that the details had been amended to say it was out for delivery??? I updated the buyer and he confirmed later that the parcel has now been delivered to him. Well I am relieved. Unless I hear from ParcelForce I can only guess as to whether or not contacting the CEO's office did anything or this would have been the natural order of events. Certainly the communications with InterParcel lead me to believe the situation was pretty hopeless. Thanks for all your messages and advice over the last weeks. It was posted...

This was all a bit of a whirlwind romance. I only found out about her yesterday and here we are happily ensconced in my room already. A Trace Elliot BLX 110 which sits daintily beneath my trusty Series 6 head and makes it sound like a normal bass amp but with honey on. Not light, not by any stretch but the easiest lift of any TE cab I've ever owned. Two of these would make for the most adorable and Tracelicious stack ever seen. I have a 210 coming to sit beneath but honestly I think that will be overkill. I know the trend will be away from back line in favour of the Sony Walkman, or whatever young folk use these days, but luckily I'll be dead and buried long before it catches on. In the meantime I'm going to gaze adoringly at my green and black beauties, and sigh with contentment every time I hear that deep satisfying badouff as I flick the power switch to on.

A friend of mine would like to join us. If he can make it, he'll bring an Ibanez 1400, Aria Sinsonido silent travel bass and an Ashdown amp. I can also provide extension leads and cake 🙂

Here's my Squier P-bass Special in gun metal grey with black plate, if it gives you any inspiration. Metallic may not be the easiest finish to apply though

Meh...

I've been in the same band now for 10 years. We've recently started doing a few songs that I've suggested. The general consensus is 'Why weren't we doing these years ago?' The answer is quite simple really; 'We could have been if anyone thought for 1 minute that my opinion might be valid. Instead, we've wasted years churning out the same sort of generic pub rock covers that every band from here to Land's End has been doing. It's a proper slog being a bass player who would like to be heard once in a while.

Mine came into its own yesterday, at a rehearsal of a band we've reformed after 30 years for a gig this year. Several of the songs proved, erm, challenging in the original key for the singist, and my set of pitch-shifted presets were a joy. How I grinned after someone said "Shall we give this a go in D?" and the guitarist and keyboard player started twiddling with controls while I just tapped my foot twice and said "In D? I'm good" 😀 Seriously, the tracking is seamless. 😍

There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, it is the way that the opinion is put across that generally causes the issues. It can also be dangerous to express opinions via eMail. Nuances and emphasis do not carry across on paper, unless one is a pretty hot writer. See some of the rows on BC. I am convinced a lot have only happened because of the medium used to get a view across. In short, nowt wrong with an opinion, perhaps the timing and the way it is expressed is the issue?

I could have taken virtually the same photo but the ah150 is tucked away. Here is mine with my Elf.

The Ninth wave side of that Album is genius ,for me Kate really took off from there .She'd ran into P Gabriel and it showed in stuff like The Dreaming .Much more diverse and more about sounds than compositions .No boundaries,no pandering .That Dreaming album for me hasn't a duff moment and style wise its all over

Time to determine the bridge position before drill fixing holes. Firstly I drilled a hole for the piezo cable at the scale length (800mm). I have a few mm play back and forth to set the intonation as the cable hole can be oversized. Once this is drilled and the cable threaded through, the strings can be fitted, the piezo connected to a tuner. The harmonics can then be checked at the 12th fret and 24th fret and the bridge adjusted accordingly. The string anchors are fully installed or levelled yet - they are a tight fit and don't want to come out once pushed into place!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Area-59-Hysteric-Parts-Aged-Bumble-Bee-Style-Caps-EXC-Ace-Iwasaki-parts/312541314904

Oh yeah. Of course. That too

Well I just assumed you'd be the one holding the Bass Guitar

Roland UM One mk2. Around £30 and works perfectly.

I’ll be bringing along a few own built basses if you want a chat about home building basses. I’ll have two semi hollow basses and a couple of solid bodied ones as well. One semi hollow bass will be medium scale, the other will be short scale and of interest to @Frank Blank...I’m determined to have it finished for then!!

Derail away I love it. That Elf makes the cab look huge too

That's crap for a start. You sounded great through my VK. 😜

With a too-loud band, I usually stop playing (in a high-vis sort of way) halfway through a song, and very obviously change up my earplugs from ER15 to ER25. I then reply to everything said to me with, "You what? Sorry? What was that?". With a too-fast band, I greet the ending of every song with, "I reckon we can play that faster, y'know." Not that funny the first time, bloody irritating the seventh time.

At the risk of derailing this into a "Show me your BLX-110" thread, here's mine. Just need that second one...

Ultimately I reckon it all comes down to what you want as a musician. If you want to play to full venues full of happy, dancing people (a bit like me, really) then two ways to completely wreck that are (i) play too loud, and (ii) play too fast. If the band's volume pins the audience to the back wall of the venue, then pretty soon you'll be playing to an empty room, and then you won't be playing anywhere. If the band's speed means that the audience stand around looking bored and disgusted, then pretty soon ... well, you get the picture. I can't see either of those issues as being negotiable, and if you're in the minority on these subjects then chances are that you're in the wrong band. You haven't mentioned the third big issue that causes trouble - repertoire choices (no, that wasn't a failed Tarantino project).

Yeah, theWals are in there too (as is his Steinberger)

Agree it's the way things are put sometimes. There's five in my band. We all feel free to be brutal with the lead guitarist because he's thick skinned and he takes it in, and he is usually better off for listening. For the singer we need to tread on eggshells. I got criticized for my timing in the intro of one song a few months back, I didn't even know it was a problem but the singer must have been fuming for months because he's so non-confrontational but he made a joke of it and at the next gig when we played that song he whispered "f'ing perfect" to me I guess as his way of saying 'thanks for listening'. I really don't like being criticized but I think if it's done in the right way everyone should listen and try what the other person is saying before they dismiss it.

Congrats! I suspect you'll totally love it. The clips I've heard of Cuzzie playing through his have been great (I hope he doesn't mind me saying). And I know I regularly get beaten up for my neanderthal views on speaker cone size, but if there were no other considerations (weight, power handling, frequency response etc) and I wanted a single cab, I really don't think I've come across anything better than a 212 for getting everything right. Funnily enough 95% of the folk who tell me I've got it wrong own either a 212, or 2 112s, or are making do with a single 112. (I appreciate I'm being a little Fearless in making such a claim). 😄

The examples you stated sounded perfectly reasonable. I guess it will always sound critical coming from a newbie. If they've always practised/played "their way" then they are unlikely to change overnight. Plus you have to build up some credit/respect first and that can only come with sticking around. That said, neither examples sounded hopeful long term. So no, I don't think you're too opinionated. Regards Davo

In answer to the question.....well, yes and no. The question to yourself is do you want to be in a band where you can't be opinionated?

Better to know what works for you and stick to your principles... Sounds to me like the other bands didn't realise how lucky they were to have someone with your experience and knowledge in the band. Their loss I'd say.

It was always about the first 3 albums for me. A much more organic sound and better songs (in general) imho, though there's no denying the quality of some later songwriting (e.g. This Woman's work, Dream Of Sheep, Cloudbusting, Hounds Of Love etc etc). Tbh, I have found all the albums (from The Dreaming onwards) to be a lot more patchy and over reliant on technology/sampling etc at the expense of songwriting. I particularly love the fantastic bass work of David Paton on the early albums and the wonderful bass contributions have continued since with Del Palmer, Eberhard Weber, John Giblin etc!

I wasn't sure for a while...I kept forgetting. I write 'bass' on the back of my hand now. It's not foolproof though - I've ended up in a fish shop before, which was a bit awkward.

My reaction these days when I see a Fender bass is “I wonder if it’s a real one?”; the fake logos thing has ruined the brand for me.

So poplar is errrm....popular

When my wife was 15 she hitchhiked across America to California to see them. From Montreal.

Two lumps of wood, a pickup, bbot and some tuners, just like like any other P bass to me.

She only needs 1 to be above you bro.

Homer: "Grand Funk? The wild shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The competent drumwork of Don Brewer? Oh, man!"

Dressing like that is a Cardinal sin.... sorry...

A 12-bar blues pattern in A from the Jim Gregory / Harvey Vinson bass book, played on an unplugged Commodore semi-acoustic in 1975

I thought about that. You could do it with an Arduino - I even wrote the sketch (including the ability to do chords) and came up with a diode matrix to work from the switches, and then it ground to a halt. I was going to do it with ordinary push-button switches. You never know, I might even revive the idea.

Someone asked me what kind of music Gregg Allman band was. I seriously couldn't pigeon hole them so thought i would ask the experts. (that means you guys just in case you were sitting wondering who the experts were) My initial thoughts are somewhere between funk, blues and rock. ??? Dave