Mornats

Surely it's in Durham, Durham. Durham, Durham, Durham, Durham, Durhaaaaaaam.

Non-competition winner here but I bought a set of Elixirs in October last year. I'd just bought a Squier VM Jazz and loved the sound of the fresh Fender 7250ML strings but they ended up fading quite rapidly. I bought a set of stainless steel Elixirs and found that they got very close to that fresh nickel sound right away but without being over bright. 8 months on and they're still sounding pretty much the same to me. I've not gigged in that time, but it's my main practice bass at home. It totally sucks to have to replace strings on a bass I'm only using for practice so I'm really happy with how the Elixirs have lasted out. They feel great to play too. It didn't take any time at all to get used to them. Not even sure if I noticed they were coated to be honest (these are the steels so maybe the coating has just dulled the feel down to how nickels usually feel). One thing I'd like to know is how to clean them. They're getting a little grubby but I don't want to risk taking the coating off with any cleaning. I also would like to know if Elixir recommend using Fast Fret to wipe down/clean the strings after use. I'd have tried it myself but I didn't want to risk damaging the coating of a £40 set of strings. I'd love to see some distinctively coloured silk wraps on them - just for cosmetics and to easily spot which basses I've put Elixirs on. Oh, and I did a comparison of the Fender strings vs. the Elixirs so you can hear the similarities: https://soundcloud.com/mornats/elixir-strings-comparison

I don't think BC claim any rights to it at all.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1435966060' post='2814121'] Maybe one day we'll have a full-out, no holds barred, Symphony Challenge, or full Film Score. I wonder just how many members would sit down and listen to a dozen of those before voting..? Hmm... [/quote] I'd be up for that!

I've got one on the way this month

In one of the photography articles, there's a comment by an events photographer (which I can't find right now) who explains the situation that's getting the photographers riled up. So, a publication will commission the photographer to do the shoot at a gig. Later on, the publication says nah, we don't want those photos so under the terms of our contract we won't pay you. I believe this is fairly normal. So what the photographer then does is to go out and sell the photos to other publications to make back their costs and earn some part of a living. It's this last part that Taylor Swift's management company are preventing the photographer from doing. Seems a bit unfair to the artist (the artist being the photographer) and this whole shebang came about by Taylor standing up for stuff that was unfair to artists. I truly believe she's right in doing what she did with Apple - she's standing up for the rights of artists to be paid. But it does seem that she's only applying it to the type of artists that she herself is part of, and not other artists. These other artists, well her management company is cutting off a revenue route for them quite on purpose. Now I *think*, but can't honestly recall if this is 100% accurate or not, that the management company rarely, if ever, gives out permission to resell the photos elsewhere. Can't remember completely, sorry! The destruction of the memory cards clause seemed harsh to me. Enforcing the removal of the images is one thing, but some photographers buy very high-end memory cards and record images to two separate cards inside the camera. You could be talking a few hundred quid just for those cards. I know the photographer here would have broken the contract but it still seems rather heavy-handed. Also, Apple were all upfront and honest about the three month free trial of Apple Music but that didn't stop Taylor Swift. She could have just said to all the indie artists, well you know the rules, you know there'll be no income for the first three months and if you don't like it, don't put your music there. I'm quite hopeful that Taylor will try to make the photography contracts fairer to the photographers once she's looked at the ins and outs of the contract.

Apparently there's a lovely new clause in the photography contract. If you break the rules of the contract Taylor Swift's management are allowed to break your gear. Although having read it, it seems to refer to the memory cards and any other storage device the images are kept on rather than your camera and lenses. http://petapixel.com/2015/06/23/taylor-swift-photo-contract-break-our-rules-and-we-can-break-your-gear/ So, is she gonna send a love-letter to Apple asking if she can smash the iPods of anyone listening to her music without following her rules?

I think she did a good thing there, especially when you think of the smaller artists who don't have her clout and will benefit from this. However, there's another, related side to this and that's in her management company's contract with photographers that state they want all rights to use photos of Taylor without further compensation to the photographer. http://petapixel.com/2015/06/22/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-against-apple/ - Let's hope Taylor writes a Dear Firefly Entertainment Inc. open letter otherwise she may come across a tad hypocritical.

Bargain eh? And the reviews point to it being more than worth it for the money - or even a lot more money!

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1434474006' post='2799981'] IMHO, those are the kinds of things that you'd normally find on a £100 instrument. [/quote] I had a fair few of those on a £600 Overwater by Tanglewood bass.

That's a thing of beauty!

My modified Squier VM Jazz: Modified with a KiOgon wiring harness with new faceplate and black knobs, Entwistle JBXN pickups and a Scratch-It! custom scratchplate.

Have you tried any of their other freebies? http://vstbuzz.com/freebies/

Hmm, I did that and now the Cello VI is saying the demo timed out. Hmpfh. I wonder if it does indeed need the full Kontakt player.

It does indeed work on the free Kontakt player although it looks in the wrong folder for the sample files so you have to manually tell it where they are each time.

Sweet, just downloading it now. Dunno if it's just for the full version of Kontakt or if it'll work on the free player but I'll report back...

This all sounds a little familiar. My day job is working on a travel website and we allow people to contact the owners of properties directly. There are a lot of scams going around at the moment that start off with a request (in our case to book a place for a large group for 2 weeks) that seems almost legit, but smacks of the odd nuances such as using "vacation" when they're trying to be English. I've been looking into these scams a fair bit and I noticed that some of them will look up the name of a real person - in one case a uni lecturer - and reference the name and job post to make it sound like a real person. So it was the reference to the real number for the real bass player that got me thinking. They're all quite convincing sometimes although they start off less er, "spiritual" than this one! I reckon there's an organised group doing the rounds of all sorts of scams. They've changed their tactics a few times once we worked out what they were up to. I'd dare say they're not restricting themselves to the travel industry. Did they include any links in their email to you? One of the tactics is for them to email the owner of a property with a link to some details. This link actually goes to a page that matches the login page for their email account with a message saying that you've been logged out. So you then of course proceed to log in and you give them your email account details. Then, they'll set up a redirection rule to catch any emails about bookings and forward them to their own email address and deleting the original. This does two things. 1: gives them access to all enquiries so they can get potential guests to transfer deposits to them and 2: doesn't alert the owner of the property as the owner can still log into their email ok. So, thinking about this a bit more, that bizarre opening email is likely to make you click on a link and that made me think of that most recent scam. If you did click on a link and saw a logout page for your email, then check your email filters and change your password.

Have you tried Reaper yet? Very cheap and had a trial that doesn't expire so you can test it out until you're convinced enough to buy it. http://www.reaper.fm/

Crimson Guitars do a nut filing tool for £16. https://crimsonguitars.com/shop/guitar-building-tools/nut-shaping/nut-shaping-file I'm sure they've got YouTube vids on how to file nuts too.

Glad you got yourself a nice bass! Now it's customary on here to post pics of your new bass

Cheers, I'll try clamping it I think as I do like the current strings. If it doesn't work out Matt, I'll let you know if I split the parts.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1432149849' post='2778713'] Happy to go into a shop and try out a load of basses? With our reputation? What are you thinking? [/quote] I know, just don't send the bill to me!