OldGit

+ 1 for tortie & black eye

[quote name='Rich' post='38917' date='Jul 30 2007, 12:48 PM']Last time I went to the Bristol SC they had a very good stock of quality basses, I was impressed... but I got attitude by the bucketload from the guy behind the till when I asked for some strings. He tried to sell me Rotosounds and then implied that I was some no-nothing bozo because I said that I didn't like Rotos. I left the shop stringless, haven't been back. Went to Rikkaxe and was sold what I asked for.[/quote] Sums it up nicely.

[quote name='Tinman' post='38857' date='Jul 30 2007, 11:30 AM']Cheers Si. It was a dumb ass question I know and had I thought about it more I would have realised. DOH *Tinman, how many times have I told you to stand in the corner and face the wall, you stupid boy!*[/quote] Not so simple if you didn't grow up on Fenders. There are some more modern Fender Jazzes that have more frets. Dunno their scale length but it's probably still 34" 34 is "normal" 35 seems to be a feature of modern 5 strings - some companies think the B need 35" scale. Not many shorter ones, acoustics, Gibson/Epi EBO's, Hofner Violin, Daisy Rocks and my mate Enrico at [url="http://www.wtbasses.net/"]Wood and Tronics Basses[/url] likes 33in scale on his customs, even the 5 strings.

[quote name='Tinman' post='38853' date='Jul 30 2007, 11:24 AM']Quick question for the Fender heads. As my Jazz only has 20 frets I was wondering about it's scale length. How is it measured? Does anyone know what it is to save me measuring it? Who's that in there? and where's my potty?[/quote] Scale lengh is the length of the strings .. nut to bridge, A Jazz is usually 34 inches and has 20 frets.

[quote name='Tinman' post='38842' date='Jul 30 2007, 11:09 AM']Don't say that to the wife Si, she'll kill me Seriously though, I don't know what I'll end up doing, it's quite possible that the 4 string Ibanez will go. I'll probably keep the Jazz as backup or if there's a sound that the Shuker can't do (unlikely-I know) that the jazz can-well who knows.[/quote] Someone asked me why I was selling my other basses (apart from the need for dosh) which made me think about it - I Just don't play enough gigs to play anything except the Shuker - if I played 5 nights a week it may be different ... This may change at Christmas, of course

[quote name='Tinman' post='38571' date='Jul 29 2007, 07:13 PM']Talking to my mate this weekend (he owns an independent store) and he was saying that Sound Control were within £800,000 of going under just recently,[/quote] Yeah, I'm within £800,000 of going under too

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='38813' date='Jul 30 2007, 10:19 AM']^ah yes there are just some people out there who have "got it" for woodwork. unfortunately not me tho.[/quote] What amazes me is that these guys have also "got it" for the many, many other aspects of custom bass making - from wood to electronics to balance and playability to perfect super gloss finishes. And outstanding customer service in most cases (a certain Mr Smith excluded ) Truly gob-smacking.

[quote name='Tinman' post='38745' date='Jul 30 2007, 06:36 AM']This one weighs in at 99lbs,[/quote] ha ha ha ha "only" Once you get your Shuker, mate, you'll be selling all these others, just like me ..

A heads up [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JayDee-Supernatural-Bass-Guitar-Mark-King-Model_W0QQitemZ110154082042QQihZ001QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVewItem"]1988 JayDee Supernatural on the Bay[/url]

[quote name='Josh' post='38588' date='Jul 29 2007, 07:42 PM']The Bristol SC has Ben Baptie (Quite tall and with Dreads), he will make you cry just looking at him, but actually is so helpful and is genuinely interested in helping and he is a damn good musician allbeit a guitarist, he know's enough about basses to sell them better than the guy who's supposed to be in charge of the bass section who has a nasty habbit of tuning the basses in Drop C.[/quote] I've been in and out of SC Bristol since it opened. The guy with the Dreads has always been nice but the last time I went it I got the expected bad treatment - I picked up my bass from Eltham the Luthier in teh back room and then tried to plug it into a TE stack in teh shop. They had a wall of TE, all of which was on and glowing 5 minutes before but was now off. As I plugged my bass in and started looking for the power switch someone came over and said "you can't try that one. It not plugged in. Use that Line 6" Er what? I've had good treatment in there but average, offish, cold, unwelcoming is the norm. I'll pay more for good service but I don't see why they can't match Web prices. I just bought my markbass head from a bricks and mortar shop that happily matched best web price - including Thomann and other european places and there's a few around.

I'm also hoping to get back in to playing live. A big obstacle for me, when looking at "band members wanted" ads, are lines like "no time wasters"... "must be committed", "must have own transport", and so on. Since the day I left school, I've been reliant on income from work as my sole means of support. It's only now, 20+ years later, where I have the relative luxury of jacking it all in and living off savings and investments... but I'll be studying full-time. So I'm always left wondering: just how are you supposed to play music with other people at all, when you have commitments? I don't know any other musicians here at all, and ads are not helping, but I hope I get to meet more musicians at the university (UCD, in case you're wondering). Maybe I ought to start a "weekend warriors" project in Dublin ..? Hey don't worry about that .. I've always worked and always played as well. I'm totally committed to my band - but there are limits and parameters that we all work within them .. You only need to stop doing other things if you want to be a professional.. I know nothing about Dublin's music scene but people on here will .. post a general question asking for the inside info on where bands advertise there ... Good luck OG

We could all ask him for some sound samples and video of him playing it .....

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='37684' date='Jul 27 2007, 09:54 AM']after month's of building and week's and week's of waiting... and absolutely no grammar lessons whatsoever.[/quote] looks like attenshun to detale is a feeture of his base buildin to

[quote name='dood' post='37669' date='Jul 27 2007, 09:31 AM']I have just been watching the vid and had to manually close my jaw! Wow! thats a AAA grade pile of..ermm.. pine he's got there!![/quote] Knotty Pine's a "tone wood" isn't it?

But this sums it up pretty well

Yup this is the subject of several Youtube videos. Here's the build diary one [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9W8Cv4T2g"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9W8Cv4T2g[/url]

Excelent thread! For funny Fender stlye decals Faker, parts-o-caster etc that occasionally come up on ebay: [email protected] Source of valves, NOS etc in Bristol [url="http://www.electrofix.co.uk/"]http://www.electrofix.co.uk/[/url] (terrible website!)

+ several from me too. Great bloke, great service and it keep the old chap happy Why go elsewhere?

[quote name='Rich' post='37256' date='Jul 26 2007, 11:45 AM']Yet remarkably, the packing guidelines they keep referring to are actually the Parcelfarce ones, right? Or have they changed tack[/quote] Actually they [i]have[/i] changed tack ... The initial rejection said they recommend [b]a guitar case or similar inside another box, with padding.[/b] I pointed out that this advice was no where to be found and they did conceed that yes, that was true. but then said that in that case I should have followed the packing advice for [b]"Electric equipment". [/b]When I pointed out that they didn't have any specific advice for that either it became [b]"Electronic equipment"[/b] that I should have followed. The examples in the packing leaflet I have are "mobile phones, laptops". So, despite the lack of specific advice on packing guitars I should have known that they woudl consider it to be in that category ... A yard of swampash and maple with a few magnets and wires - the same category as a hifi sysetm, a laptop or a DVD recorder? I guess they also expect women to carry [url="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/prog_cb/obb76/"]Rawlplugs in their handbags[/url] It's world class wriggling .. Anyway I have Allan Leighton's (the ultimate boss of the Royal Mail) phone number - a nice Customer Services low level operative gave it to me - so I'm just marshalling my thoughts and girding my loins. Then I'll call him. he should be aware of what his directors are doing to customer confidence and fairness.

[quote name='Rich' post='37256' date='Jul 26 2007, 11:45 AM']Yet remarkably, the packing guidelines they keep referring to are actually the Parcelfarce ones, right? Or have they changed tack to a slightly different slopy-shouldered teeth-sucking ooh-not-my-problem-mate approach? What a shower of complete fornicating masturbators. [/quote] Well to be absolutely precise, the delivery is entirely Post Office, no Parcel Force involvement at all. So Sorry Parcel Force for bringing you into this. [b]However, if you are shipping a bass via Porcal Farce you need to be aware that the insurance limit is £150[/b] for all muical instruments and they do actually have published advice for packing guitars there on their website. (search for guitar from the royal mail home page) The confusion was because initially the rejection quoted that advice almost, but not quite, word for word. Ie the Post office implied that I should have followed the "Royal Mail" guidelines on packing a guitar. These are on the Percal Farce website and nothing to do with the Post Office. PO and PF are, of course, under the umberella of "Royal Mail" Actually the approach of the Customer Service director was "I'm not changing my mind and treating you as a special case as that would contradict the OFT Post guidelines on how to treat customers fairly" ie if the change their mind for me they'd have to do it for everyone - including those who send guitars in bin liners ... yeah right. The concept of "you have actually made an error here and therefore it's OK to change your mind to put it right" was not something he was interested in. Anyway .. Sorry for carping but it just feels so unfair.

I'd certainly advise against a Stereo setup at the 400 watts level. For that size of venue (up to about 175 people) You just need Mono. As for panning the instrumens to reflect where people are on stage -..., I really don't understand the point ... The only person likely to hear the benefit of that is someone in precisely the right place in the centre of the hall ... Nah, don't worry about stereo FOH 'til you get up to the bigger places and much bigger kit. Of course a two amp ("stereo") powered mixer can be very useful - one amp powering the front of house, the second amp powering the monitors, all in mono and all with passive speakers. Incidentally we use a mixture of powered monitors (with eq) and passive monitors to give us the maximum control over the tone of each wedge as we have different requirements (ie different bits of the aural frequency left working in our old ears ) and different feedback challenges with the acoustic and electric instruments. The passives run from one side of our two amp mixer and the powered minotors daisychain from a line out send from the monitor side. It's relatively easy to run power to the monitor wedges.

[quote name='The Funk' post='37202' date='Jul 26 2007, 10:14 AM']Well, they've given you his number. Try it. If you get his voicemail or secretary, get an appointment to speak to him (either on the phone or in person). I think he'd have no problems in principle contradicting anyone below him. That doesn't mean he won't agree with the Customer Service Director. But if the only guidance anyone at Parcelforce has been able to give you is that you should pack it exactly as you have done, then there's a flaw in their guidance - making it their fault. Also, if you received some guidance about packing it before you posted it, and that was the same guidance, ie. bubble wrap + mark 'fragile', then you complied with their guidance - even if they're now saying that the guidance they gave you is wrong. Again, that would be their fault.[/quote] Oh its NOT Parcelforce! they get very upset of I get that bit wrong. It's the [b]Post Office[/b] - totally different outfit.

[quote name='The Funk' post='37171' date='Jul 26 2007, 09:30 AM']Don't go to court yet. Contact Allan Leighton and explain the situation to him as calmly as possible. Did you get any packaging instructions from their employees before you posted it? I can't remember what you said about that earlier. If you did, you should definitely make that one of the first things you say.[/quote] Do you think he will speak to me (I think he's a bit busy right now with a national strike looming) and if he did do you think he'd contradict his Customer Service Director?