tauzero

We get the occasional extended solo, and the lads do get excited... I can't climb onto chairs these days, I just have a walk around and a sit down.

Conventionally that's where the dot markers go on a lined fretless, whereas they go where the frets would be on an unlined. I had the markers moved on a Sei lined fretless with very faint lines so they were on the fret positions, and another faintly lined fretless already had them on the fret positions. Conversely, I have a defretted Squier VM 5 Jazz - maple board and black lines, with the dots remaining in place, and that's not a problem. I'd be inclined to find an equivalent fretless rather than have it defretted.

Just to follow on from those events, there's a report today that the motorcyclist died after a collision with a tractor. On a happier note, Mrs Zero accompanied me to the open mic tonight. I didn't take a guitar, as one of the hosts played guitar for us on some songs we'd prearranged. Very enjoyable evening, kept me on my toes as there were three songs I didn't know - cue rapid exploration of Ultimate-Guitar.com to find the chords and squinting at my phone to follow them. And I jumped up to play "Nights in white satin" with one performer, and then discovered that he was tuned a semitone down, always a recipe for disaster.

I've got a D-Tuner on the B string of my Sei 6-string (so maybe it should be an A-Tuner). Can I join your groove, swagger, and oikish malevolence club?

Lovely piece of work. I assume that either the reeds have locators so they are perfectly placed, or they didn't want to show the 200 hours of tuning them all up. Very ingenious cutter to make the rubbers, that must have been quite a task though to make 61 of them.

Probably going to cut down the amount that I go to the Shirley British Legion open mic night, as the guitarist who plays bass badly is also the one sat at the mixer who can just grab his bass and impose himself on whoever's playing, and I'm finding it a bit stressful (it's OK when somebody other than me who can play bass is playing, it's not so good when you're anticipating 25% of the notes being out of tune, time, or both). Plus we only get two songs apiece so Mrs Zero has even less to do than I have. Still, I did get to play a couple of songs with Annette that I've never played (or, in one case, heard) before, so that was fun. Rather sobering event coming home from it. I leave the M42 at junction 10, and the roundabout was partially closed off by a number of police cars and another couple of vehicles, plus an ambulance. Going past the scene, I caught a glimpse of someone lying on the road with a full-face helmet a metre away from them. No sign of activity around them. It didn't look good.

You may be watching the wrong programme. If you want your tat fixed, you have to go to Tattoo Fixers, where your 2cm x 4cm tattoo saying "BOB" (your ex-husband) will be transformed into a giant peacock covering your entire arm, or your rather unfunny tiny little picture of a man weeing somewhere a few centimetres north of your penis will be turned into a Cthulhu covering your entire torso. That is one programme where the punishment in no way fits the crime.

I think we should take a helicopter view of this, preliminary to a deep dive. And don't forget to think outside the box while you're pushing the envelope. We must use synergy for organic growth.

Where are the pitchforks and blazing torches? She's got a clip-on tuner on the headstock!

I'm baffled by all the variants of EBMM, SBMM, Sterling, SUB, etc Rays. I'm currently at the cheap end with a <checks headstock> SUB series Sterling, made in Indonesia and presumably a Ray5. I'm sure somebody listed the various ranges and models a while ago but I haven't been able to find it. Would anybody be able to produce a definitive list of Rays past and present, with maybe some information on things like neck profiles, virtues, and vices? Pictures would be nice, preferably showing the headstock so it's simple to know what you're looking at when you spot one in the wild.

I'm not keen on the looks of singlecuts [1], although I do have one - a Barcus 6-string fretless that was feeling unwanted at a Gardiner Houlgate auction, so I took pity on it. Very nice to play, and the top unhorn slopes to the neck rather than being one of those (like the Ibanez above) where the unhorn slopes back towards the bridge giving it a Snoopy nose. Other than the looks, there's nothing really to differentiate this from other basses. The neck is very playable, it sounds good. [1] Except Les Pauls, though I'm not so keen on the basses

Probably not an autobiography.

You could use M7 spring washers to space out a 7mm thread pot: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363082401549

A gilter? Is this an attempt to gild the lily?

"Dimed". Just say "full" or "maximum", we're British [1], not bloody Yanks. [1] Most of us, anyway