neepheid

Hehe, whoops, finger slipped. Got about 15 weeks to cancel, I guess...

I would ordinarily react with sad face to this, but in all honesty, my November was looking pretty congested with gigs so I'm kinda glad that it's on the move. Can I say that if a spring bash does go ahead, the sooner you can fix a date the better it would be for me - I would really love to attend but the gigging bassist has to plan around these things and the sooner I can block it off in the band calendar, the better. Venues already starting to ask us about dates for next year...

You underestimate how much of a foreground task playing bass is for me...

Just do your due diligence - this place is not immune from bad actors, cosy and friendly though it is. Check for a feedback thread, check the person's posting history. If something feels off, walk away - it's only a bass/amp/whatever. Report concerns. BC as an entity should not be held responsible for what a few bad apples do (or try to do). You need to take personal responsibility for your own online safety.

But... but... you're buying basses wrong! 🙄

I've gone off such things - not only is there a service charge/delivery charge, but they mark up the price of the items as well, the rats. I'm cheaper going in the car myself and getting the bloody takeaway!

Some places we play have some electronic system that you have to do some bollox with to get paid direct to a bank account. I don't know a lot about it, the guitarist takes care of it then sees we get our share of the loot when it finally deigns to arrive in his bank account.

What makes this worse is that the duffer you got sent as a replacement has got the binding sorted by the looks of the photos you've put up. Gah!

That's rough. How stupid do they think you are? What's the logic behind replacing a returned bass with one which is worse than the one being returned?

The Wood Database - https://www.wood-database.com/ - is a great resource, will give you stats like average dried weight of different woods, and where it's from, typical uses and lots of super geeky detail, like: "The term “Swamp Ash” does not refer to any particular species of ash (Fraxinus genus), but is generally used by luthiers to describe lightweight wood yielded from ash trees which are usually found in wet or swampy areas." In this case, "lightweight" means light as far as ash is concerned, in this case the rather vague "less than 30-33.6 lbs/ft3". Red alder is 28.0 lbs/ft3. These are averages, of course, as I said, wood be woody - you could be lucky and score some super light swamp ash, or be unlucky and get some heavy alder.

Swamp ash is more expensive than alder probably because it's rarer, or harder to procure, or "prettier". Or, you know, "reasons in general"

Wood be woody, I know, but swamp ash (even if it is black ash) is on average heavier than alder (which is what the solid colour Z7 bodies are made of).

The only trouble I've encountered in years of gigging is the inappropriate physical contact - basically getting dry humped by some woman who thought it would be hilarious while her friend videoed it. HOW EFFIN' HILARIOUS (not). I could have done without it, personally. What can you do though? She's behind me. Can't bump her out of the way with my backside, don't want to give her any encouragement. I just tried to concentrate on what I was doing and hoped she'd get bored and eff off. Eventually, she did bog off when she didn't get a rise or reaction out of me but damn. So funny isn't it? Now what do you think would have happened if I had suddenly started grinding myself against a female performer? I'd be out on my ear within seconds, I reckon. But because it's the other way round, it's "funny" and I should be grateful for the attention, right? Well, no, it sucked and I'd rather it hadn't happened at all, thanks. I don't know what I could have done differently - compromise my musical performance to channel some brain power into my spacial awareness perhaps? Thankfully, it's a super rare occurrence.

This Saturday, 21st September, I'll be mullering classic rock tunes with Nine Lives at O'Donoghues in Aberdeen. First time playing here. Late start, I believe, possibly 11pm.

I thought they just got distracted by something that focuses the mind (like arguing about bassy stuff on here) and left the dinner in the oven a bit too long - not that I've ever done that...

I think you're cursed, mate

I'm just suggesting what could be an easy fix (and nothing to get in a knot about) before returning a bass needlessly if that does fix it. We're all human, I don't think leaving the trim pot in the wrong setting when it can be easily fixed with a small screwdriver is that big a deal.

Can't comment on the roast (got the burgundy, so have maple/ebony and matching headstock). My one is 9.5lbs (which incidentally I don't consider particularly heavy - everyone's different). If your preamp is too loud, there's a trim pot on the preamp which you can use to tame it down. It's the wee blue thing on the circuit board, turn it with a small screwdriver. No idea which way you turn it but I guess anti clockwise would make the preamp quieter. Mine was set fine as supplied.

I can't say I have noticed this on mine, sorry I also notice very little difference between volume levels in active or passive mode. Maybe I got lucky and the trim pot on my preamp arrived set to an appropriate level. Caveat - this is all based upon headphone listening - haven't had a chance to hook it up to my amp yet and have a proper "war volume" go with it. Pesky drummers (who also have the keys/lease to the rehearsal space) buggering off for two weeks, I dunno, shouldn't be allowed

Similar, but probably not these exact colours. D'addario XL nickels are my string of choice, and they feel familiar to me. Also, as a stereotypical tight fisted Scot, having my default choice of strings as the stock strings on a bass makes me happy.

What in the fsck is this nonsense?

The colour of the ball ends heavily suggests D'addario, most likely XL nickels.

Use of that phrase is now deprecated. I can read music... at a rate of about a note a minute. How does it go again? Oh yeah, Greedy Bstards Deserve Fsck All... I'll figure it out by Christmas, hopefully.

Have I been lucky, or have you been incredibly unlucky? Of course with this statistically tiny sample set we can't really say either way.

And to expand upon the series/parallel, here are the gut shots: There is a 4 conductor wire coming out of the humbucker. Red and white are going to the same lug of the blend pot (so it's parallel) and there's a black wire and a green wire both going to ground. If someone wants to shoehorn a way to do series/parallel or coil split shenanigans, it is electrically possible. Tight squeeze in there though - so good luck! Closeup of where the outer insulation of the humbucker wire ends - hard to see the black wire, but it's hiding behind the green one.