mcnach

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1351196598' post='1848673'] To the best of my knowledge, tuning down your E string to D won't cause any damage to the neck of your bass, but be sure to retune back up to E before you put your bass away for any length of time ( i.e. a few hours or more ) to avoid any long-term problems that might arise from an uneven tension on the neck for prolonged periods of time. [/quote] chances are that the strings you already use are nothing close to being even tension (at least if the data provided on the D'Addario site are representative), so I would not worry about that. A Hipshot bass extender (D-tuner) is soooo convenient and fun, if you think of switching often between the two tunings. Highly recommended.

[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1351256506' post='1849327'] John East is the obvious suggestion [/quote] +100 Big fan of the 3-band MMSR (classic 2-band plus a midsweep module). Got three of those!

But I don't have a kangaroo...

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1351179491' post='1848333'] The red stuff is called specialist, i have a tin of it in my garage. Does everything but that bloody sealer. This stuff. Flipping brilliant it is. [/quote] wow, I had never seen that! I'll remember it next time I strip a body... it took a while with the green stuff. Pity it cannot cope with the sealer. Tought stuff that one

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1351161758' post='1848030'] Red Nitromors eats poly, it's great. Sorry if this is a bit late.... [/quote] red nitromors? I see green and yellow only...

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1351010184' post='1846196'] ........................................ sorry - did somebody say something ?? [/quote] erm... I think you want the guitarist, that guy over there. I'm only the bass p... hey! I didn't even finish the sentence!!!

[quote name='Jigster' timestamp='1351009687' post='1846182'] the guy who called you a twat could at least have mustered a 'radge' - my all time fave Scottish word from many months working in Edinburgh back in the day. [/quote] indeed!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1351007309' post='1846129'] Maybe '[i]that [/i]guy' knows you personally; nothing to do with your bass playing..? Nice clip, though; nothing 'twatty' about the bass in that. Thumb's up. [/quote] ha ha, it is a real possibility, that! I never say he was not right... I do have my twatty moments. Thanks for the comments on the clip. Can't wait until it's all done and sounding nice. Although I detest my playing in a couple of songs. But nobody seems to notice... oh dear, here I go again

hey, this is my thread, about what I do and what I like... it's not about whether you like to be noticed or not, or whether your guitari... ah, nobody notices what I say anyway!

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1350946341' post='1845560'] I've got to be honest,I really don't like that. A lot of bands seem to play some kind of lame funk-esque type jam in those situations,and often it's horrible. [/quote] ouch, that could well be us! it certainly was last week... most people seemed to like it, but it was not our most inspired moment., I have to admit. I feel it's ok (obviously, or I would not do it!) as long as it is not long. A funky jam, even if not very inspired, if it's only a couple of minutes long, keeps the attention on the band (2 minutes of silence would be an eternity) and it's not long enough to bore people even when it doesn't quite overflow with inspiration. We've actually sometimes gone back after a gig "hey, that jam.. that was interesting, I'm sure we can work on that" and a couple of times it has given ideas for a song. Well, once a song, anotehr time for another section in an already written song. [quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1350946341' post='1845560'] Surely you can continue a set without doing this,especially as there is another guitar player? It doesn't take long to change a string. [/quote] we could push ahead, but for the sake of a couple of minutes, we'd rather be "complete". In this case the guitarist is also the main singer. We have three guitarists, with very well defined roles. Some songs are easy to do with one or another. In fact, in some songs the singer does not really play except a couple of embellishments or a short solo. We have pushed ahead even when rhythm guitarist broke two strings, as we could take a break soon and we played songs that would not suffer much. But we prefer to have a short jam and get our full complement of strings if possible. [quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1350946341' post='1845560'] Back on topic....Of course people notice the bass player. The ones who don't get noticed are the ones who believe that they shouldn't be noticed and try to hide at the back. [/quote] I don't hide... but in a 6-piece band, with four microphones at the front (the three guitarists either sing or do backing vocals, plus a trumpet player who has become the star with his dance moves and we need to put him in front), sometimes I'm just happy I can just about shuffle my feet a little where we are... It's amazing how small some stages are (clearly we are not playing Wembley ) and how a little determination allows you to put six people plus amps and drumkit on a pinhead But I know the ones you mean. Not only bass players. I went to see my friend's first gig on guitar once... and I could not see him at all. I thought maybe it was the angle, where I was... so I moved... no joy. He was truly hiding behind some large speakers in a corner. It was a two guitar band... but you only ever saw one. We laughed at him a bit about that afterwards. He confessed he felt terrified with all his mates watching him. He got over that 'though. I'm not a spotlight-lover, but I do like to be seen and we do move about on stage a fair bit when we can. WE have a fair amount of interaction among ourselves and it shows we are having fun. It's soemthing people have often commented on, that we seem to be having fun while we play. I find it amazing how many bands just get up there and play looking like it's a chore to them. I don't get it. I guess in some styles it's part of the look... and we are most definitely a "good time" fun band... but still.

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1350944568' post='1845537'] Well that's Ian Hunter stuffed then! Though I say credit to the OP for filling the breakage gap with a jam; I've seen bands flap around panicing, go to the bar for a drink, tell the audience to talk among themselves, or have a row (+ flounce) as to why he didn't bring a spare guitar. [/quote] we do that a lot, jamming. Although it's not always really improvised... we normally have a bunch of songs in various states of "work in progress", and we sometimes fall onto one or two of those. We actually use that to gauge how a song is coming along... If the people start dancing and it's well received, we will work more on that one. If people clear the floor, no matter how much we like it, it goes back to the end of the queue. Right now our main priority is our "calypso jam"

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1350943917' post='1845528'] £50? - and you kept the change I hope. [/quote] actually, we got "one of our girls" to get us the drinks. She gave him the change back, yup.

We all have heard that, haven't we? Last week I played a late night gig with Sea Bass Kid [1]. We played two sets, and during the break we generally go out to get some fresh air etc. An "interesting" character approached us wanting to adopt us and putting a very serious amount of cash behind us (he says). Fully "blinged", wearing sunglasses at night, talking about how he's loaded and into music and we were the only band in 8 weeks that he has been in Edinburgh that he thought were good (well, thank you! ) bla blah, "here, buy yourselves a drink" says handing us a £50 note. Anyway, the full conversation with him belongs to a new thread on its own but the reason I started this one was for something he said. When he was giving us compliments, he said how there was a guy drinking next to him during our first set, and at one point that guy turns to our "interesting" guy and says "the bass player? the bass player... is a twat!!!" To which our "interesting guy" replied (he says) saying that he is the twat, and we are very talented and our music is great and this and the other and sent him out of the bar. And, you know what's the bit that I thought was cute? Not the fact that this guy "defended" me, but the fact the other guy had noticed me, the bass player. Even if it was to say I was a twat I'm serious I don't know why he disliked me... we had a guitar string breakage issue and one of the other guitarists, the drummer and I started to jam and I may have been a bit loud and even slapped a bit on that bit for a minute (oh, the horror!) so maybe he just did not appreciate that. I was also very tired and a bit ill and I think I did not play very well that night... maybe it was that. Ah, I'll never know, for our "interesting" guy sent him out before he got to heckle me, so I don't know who he was. But... hey! Someone noticed me! [1] here's a preliminary mix of one of our tracks from our new to be released first CD, in case you are curious [url="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38169404/SBK%20recording%20mixes%20-%20121022/Gloria.mp3"]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38169404/SBK%20recording%20mixes%20-%20121022/Gloria.mp3[/url]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1350829938' post='1843928'] I read the description and thought "God that sounds awful" but it actually looks really good in the pics! Good job. :-) [/quote] I had the same reaction NIce result!

[quote name='DarkHeart' timestamp='1350755670' post='1843193'] Just bought an alder body, im gonna make myself another Jazz [/quote] oooh, looking forward to the detailed day to day photographs

I keep thinking of picking one of these up for my black/maple OLP... hmmm. I'd love to see the bits and how they all assemble to gauge how much work it'd require on the OLP...

[quote name='Darkstrike' timestamp='1350517689' post='1840103'] Who cares if it's "just a variation" when it's a variation on awesome? Eh? [/quote] Good point

[quote name='tommorichards' timestamp='1350506749' post='1839936'] 2 things. What oil? And why not a ricky neck pickup? [/quote] Casey's TruOil. It's what MusicMan recommends for the Stingray so I bought some a while ago. Why not a Ricky neck pickup? Because... I don't particularly like Ricks (even if I were able to find a pickup!) and also I'm not a big fan of neck pickups. I know, I know, this way I'm just getting another slight variation of the Stingray... but what can I do? I'm stuck in Stingrayland

[quote name='Ashwood1985' timestamp='1350434342' post='1838957'] LOL Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. I've been a little pre-occupied with work and mixing some album tracks between shifts so I only got as far as taking the neck off the body and leaving the bass in two on the sofa for the last week! When I manage to get the time to strip it back I'll make my mind up. linseed oil and gunstock wax sound like good hassle free solutions that should deliver the result I'm after. I'll be sure to update with any progress! Thanks again for all the contributions. They're appreciated [/quote] doing the same at the moment on the neck of my Retrovibe Vantage. In my case I'm using fine steel wool and Casey's TruOil. I also have some Casey's gunstock wax. I applied the oil last night, couple of coats. Looking already pretty nice, and simple.

[quote name='such' timestamp='1350428325' post='1838915'] the OLP (OIP ) looks like the real thing, they made two pickup versions towards the end of production. If it's one of those and it's really unused, the price is good. Still, I wouldn't do business with that shop. [/quote] I think there must have been a lot of OLP parts on sale after production stopped. I have seen over the past couple of years a number of OLP MM2 basses with a few odd bits, very unusual colours, the wrong type of pickguard, slightly different body shape, etc. I suspect various people/companies bought crates of parts, and some were assembled into "genuine" OLP instruments, while some instruments end up just having an OLP neck and some hardware etc

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1350429090' post='1838924'] Most of the time when people request songs that we don't know I just say "yeah sure, we'll play it after the next one". Truckstop [/quote] Playing with our RHCP tribute band someone asked for Pearl Jam. Well, as it turns out, we were a Pearl Jam tribute band for a short while, so we launched into Even Flow (only I did not have the fretless with me, but it works)

Behringer V-Amp2. One of the guitar amp models, stamped on the front was the "Amercian Blues". They fixed that soon... but mine is one of the "rare" Amercian models. I wonder if that makes it more valuable for collectors now

I got the steel wool and the TruOil out today. I only spent a few minutes with it... and I'm very pleasantly surprised at what a little oil does for looks! I only used the very fine steel wool on the back of the neck to smoothen it a little and remove the slightly coarse feeling it had, that "raw" feeling. Seriously, about 5min it's all it took. Wiped it all off, and it felt noticeable better. Then the oil. It looks nice, darkening the wood a tiny bit. I'll apply a couple more coats tomorrow and let it dry properly, then buff it. I need to apply some to the fretboard too, but that will have to wait until I change the strings. I have no neck pickup anymore. I have plans for a drastic look change, and I'm going to go with a single humbucker (for now, I might bring back the neck pickup in the future, at a new location closer to the bridge). So to force me to act, I cut all the wires and removed the pickup. watch this space...