mcnach

Looks like a 2010 (first 2 digits after the factory code CGR).

Or you could provide, for the kids to play with, a box of nails, hammers, scissors and set of throwing knives, and announce that over the microphone. Maybe.

If, like me, you prefer lacquered necks... I had my Stingray neck cleaned and lacquered by David Wilson in Hexham... it didn't cost that much and it's much easier to keep clean now. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002025970885

Come on! You know better than that!

If you just make a cut for the strings yes, but the idea I got from seeing others is to cut a slot for each string with a different width, or maybe V-shaped so that you can find the amount of muting desired (that's the idea, how much trial and error it will take, I don't know... but I'll let you know as I just bought on of those to try.

A certain seller on ebay now has a template derived from mine, so getting a replacement pickguard in whatever colour you prefer should be straight forward

Got a new pickguard for the JP-55OP

beautiful!

I wonder if these would do a good job. It's a pretty dense foam and you get a few out of a single eraser so you can have a few tries with different slot depth/widths etc. They come in all colours, including black.

He now has a template for the 5 string JP-55OP https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/earlpilanz I thought the tort on blue was a bit much, so I now have a single ply black pickguard. Originally: New pickguard: (in the process of changing strings... the tuner slot was too narrow for the B string on the set of TI Jazz flats I bought so I got a replacement tuner but haven't got around to fitting it yet).

But they don't do any of the usual materials, only acrylic with whatever design printed on the back, do they? At least that was the case a while back.

They do, or with an oval one. That huge piece of plastic on the SR5 always looked bad to me.

Heat-treated pickups... is that the new snake oil? What does it even mean?

Stingray. It just does everything and has the most comfortable neck.

Not sure what's the best, as there are many different parameters to consider... but when facing this question, I went and bought muself a TCE BAM200. Mostly because it was tiny tiny and cheap. It turns out it actually sounds pretty good and I played two gigs with it. It looks odd on a 410 cab but it does a very decent job. I considered other bigger amps that were arguably better, but size was a big point for me: if it's not tiny and fits easily in the gig bag I know I just would leave it behind often.

Matter of taste more than how many gigs you play. I like roundwounds but I don't like them new. I've had DR Sunbeams on my Stingray since... August 2018 (I have a spreadsheet, yes, I'm a bit special ) and they sound *just* right now (well, they've been sounding right for three years I suppose). I still turn treble down. Many many gigs.

Sometimes you get, erm... 'interesting' sound people (I won't use the word engineers here). You just got one of those, I suspect, and my experience is that it's almost always useless to try to change their ways so when I encounter them I just shrug, smile, and try my best. Live to gig another day!

It really depends on how many gigs each band plays. In the past I have been in up to 4 bands at a time, but a lot of the members were shared across bands. That meant it was easy to avoid schedule conflicts, and it had the advantage that if we found band A could not do a gig we had agreed to (it happens sometimes, health, family issues...) rather than simply cancelling we can often offer another of the bands as a replacement, which as usually accepted. In terms of time for rehearsals etc... we keep it to a minimum. Once a repertoire is built, the need for rehearsals drops, so we only meet once in a while to add a few additional songs which we work out individually. The only band I was rehearsing regularly with was an originals band, because at every rehearsal we'd spend a significant amount of time trying new things, jamming (a lot of our songs started as something that happened at a jam that stuck with us: essentially we use it as a filter... we throw in a lot of ideas on the assumption that whatever is good it would be memorable and it'll stay with us: if it's not memorable to us, we can't expect audiences to find it interesting/memorable either). Bottomline is: you need to be organised. Time is limited, no doubt. If you organise yourself and work with similarly minded people you can extract a lot of that time. If you're all a bit disorganised, you'll get a lot less done. Which is fine, as long as that's what you want to do.

The main problem I see is that while you may find avenues to claim ownership... how do you enforce it if someone else decides to use your name? I can't imagine you will get anywhere without some kind of legal involvement, which for most covers bands is not going to be an attractive proposition even if you are in the right and will win. Tough one. Hiring a hitman might be the easiest way... but that brings a whole other set of complications, so I would not recommend that

I would! That's a beauty!

With the information given? A hard no. Nope. Just no. Ain't gonna happen. Dream on. Etc... I could be persuaded to let them borrow a bass, but it won't be my #1. It would depend on my relationship to that work colleague. If it's just a colleague then I'd be of the mind to let them figure out themselves: hire a bass if you don't want to travel with yours. If it's a friend who happens to be a colleague and as such I trust him, then I'm much more likely to help. But again, it won't be my #1... nothing to do with its value (mine is not that expensive, just a standard Stingray from 2002), but it's the bass I feel at home with the most, had the neck refinished to my liking and that bass stays with me. But I agree... I don't understand why he doesn't bring a bass. I wouldn't. But that's somebody else's problem.

Interesting night. The UB40 tribute band got hired to play at a nice midsize venue, but it wasn't your usual gig: it was a birthday party for the owner of the place. There was another band before us playing for an hour, and then us. Our keyboard player had to rush back to Ireland due to family matters... so we were a little nervous: that keyboard plays a lot of very 'signature' riffs and sounds, plus he shares vocals with our guitarist. Still, we've done it before, and we manage alright with the horns helping cover a lot of the space the keys leave. Well, it turns out the band before us had a keyboard player who is a UB40 fan. So we invited him to play and he did wonderfully. Yeah, it was different and didn't have all the right sounds, but it sounded pretty good. He seemed to enjoy the additional pressure, and the additional praise from the audience We had to force him to take our money in the end (he was on stage the whole time, nearly 2 hours, and he made us sound better than without keys, so it's ony fair), which he refused initially... and now we may have a keyboard dep, which we had tried for a while unsuccessfully. Result!

at some point it's wise to stop digging and move along... edit: I mean it in the nicest way I can

Very very surprised to hear that. I thoroughly enjoy my terrible gutless amp

Ha! Spot on: first bass I had that issue with was a Stingray. I ended replacing the battery box for an identical one... and it's started to misbehave again after a few years. I bend the terminals so that they make better contact and it's good for several months, but once it starts misbehaving it'll continue. I'm going to install one with a clip-on type connector next.