tauzero

Try using the 5th string instead of not using it because you don't need it. You are allowed to play it further up than the 4th fret.

Ah yes, another hate. Using your PIN number to withdraw money from an ATM machine. Examples of RAS syndrome.

F#

The hissing of summer lawns?

Hope it has a lovely grain. Or maybe stain it if it's rather on the pale side:

You just have to remember that the left hand is Motor and the right hand is Dynamo, then First finger is Field, seCond finger is Current, and thuMb is motion. Fleming's left and right hand rules (no relation).

Nux Mighty Plug or Boss Katana Go will run headphones and you can select effects on them - the Boss is superior to the Nux but they're both perfectly usable. Further up the budgetary scale, there's the Positive Grid Spark Neo which is a wireless dongle combined with wireless headphones, and for another £100+ there's the Boss Waza Air. All four of these allow you to play music on a Bluetooth device paired with them so you can play along. I've got the first three of these and my very much preferred option is the Positive Grid Spark Neo as it's wireless and the included headphones are good quality. The Nux and the Boss Katana both need you to supply headphones which does mean possible extra expense but also means you have a choice of what headphone you use.

Out of interest, how did it compare with other cabs? I never did any comparisons, just used it I think for one gig and then went to a GR Bass combo so I could have a combo that was even lighter than the cab.

G♭ F♯

Not giraffics?

I was trying to find a photo from a recent gig which is the only one where we all wore shorts, but there appears to be no photographic evidence. Probably just as well. In our defence, it was ridiculously hot.

Ditto, I was wondering whether it should be in "Notable deaths".

No, a much better idea is to buy a 5-string, then sell it on in three months with "I've found I don't get on with 5-strings" in the advert. Incidentally, I moved to 5-string after 30 years on 4s.

I didn't realise it was showing adverts, I run an ad blocker. I find the search function really poor on JMB. It's sort of better on Bandmix, except that 75% of the people on there don't understand how to set the filters for what they're looking for, so they look for accordionists, bagpipers, and triangle players as well as bassists, when they're actually looking for a drummer.

I met someone called Ged for the first time after a couple of years on a bikers' email list. "Hi Ged" I said. "It's bloody Jed!" he replied. As there were several of us meeting up, "it's bloody Jed" got deployed a few times. I wonder if Geddy Lee has the reverse problem.

If he'd called it the Graphics Exchangeable Format, I'm sure everyone would have been happy to call it Jeff.

We play Sweet child o'mine dropped a semitone (ie in the original key) but I also play it with various others in standard tuning, so to avoid confusion I always play it in the same place and use a pitch shifter to take it down a semitone. At the last gig, the singer didn't have his SG which he has downtuned but he picked up his Les Paul which he keeps in standard tuning. I thought he must have decided he can sing it in standard tuning after all. It only took me two notes of the intro to realise that he'd downtuned the Les Paul, so I played the rest of the intro downshifted on the bass and then switched the pitch shifter on for the verse.

I'm so glad it's not just me.

Well, obviously everybody will be going out and buying soldering irons if they haven't already got one, so you could build a Thumpinator equivalent for a lot less: https://guitar-electronics.eu/en_US/c/SUBSONIC-FILTER/84

There are those of us who are advocates of 5-strings, and those of us who are advocates of buying basses. You should really be more surprised that nobody has told you to buy a P.

Open mic night at the Rhodehouse in Sutton Coldfield last night. This was a sort of audition slot for the Bonnevilles in order to try and get a gig there. Backline is all supplied and there's a PA with sound engineer. The house band was impressive, there were a couple of good solo artists, and we did five songs and got a pretty good reception. Provided bass setup was an Aguilar Tonehammer head and pair of Aguilar cabs (SL112s I think). Must get Mrs Zero and me booked in there some time. I only did backing vocals on a couple of numbers. My mic wasn't on initially but when the SE saw me singing into it, he unmuted me - I'd never heard my voice so clearly in a monitor before and I was rather startled and only slightly horrified.

Baseball caps generally aren't great, but the way they are worn is also a factor in how repellent they are.

Plus if you have a compressor, it won't be trying to act on sub-audio frequencies and messing up its response to audible sound.

You should have been thinking "Do I really think I know better than Leo Fender's (or John Hall's) accountants?".

Many years ago at rehearsals with one band, I used to switch off the guitarist's fuzz box to get him to play stuff right and not hide the mistakes.