tauzero

Thanks for all your work on this. A water jet cutter might be the tool for the job.

It's not the surface area, it's the volume. That is, the area multiplied by the cone excursion (Xmax). So a 12" with a big Xmax could be louder than a 15" with a smaller Xmax. Any advance on volume? We'd have to go to four dimensions...

I've used this lot since it was called EPC (about 40 years): https://powder-coatings.co.uk/

I doubt very much that a mixer would want to deal with speaker-level voltages. I have alternative things I can try if this experiment doesn't quite work out (as opposed to being a dismal failure) - running separate amps for each cab is quite simple (and I have a spare amp or two), but involves more wiring, and I want to keep things to a minimum.

Wasn't worried about that, I saw them soundchecking. Venue is full PA, and his head was a Fender Rumble 500 with a touch of overdrive at nowhere near full whack. Still, I'll find out for sure at a rehearsal tomorrow.

Just spoke to the venue. Bassist said he'd folded it up and put it under the drum riser. It's not there now. Now to try and extract £50 from him to replace the cover...

People who have faith in the fundamental trustworthiness of humanity, despite six decades of experience to the contrary.

I passed it up to him on the stage (as they were just starting to soundcheck when I arrived) with its cover on. Apparently he folded up the cover and put it under the drum riser. Whether it's still there is another question.

The One10 is a monitor for me. The BB2 is the FOH speaker for the bass. Our PA can't do bass.

I want to try to reduce the onstage sound from my BB2, which I'm pretty much on top of, so I'm going to try using a One10 pointed up at me on stage and put the BB2 by one of the PA speakers. Should be an interesting experiment.

In this case, the bassist thought his cab was in the band van. For convenience, we both used his head.

Hohner B2AV. Nice and compact so it doesn't take up much extra room.

He didn't realise my cab had a cover on it or that I'd lent the other bassist a lead. I never thought to mention it as I assumed that the other bassist would take as much care of my gear as I would of someone else's.

I've always been one who's happy to lend gear. I know there are strong opinions either way, and I wouldn't advise anyone else what to do. Last night, we supported a Blur tribute band at the Robin 2 near Wolverhampton. I'd had a message late in the afternoon from our guitarist, asking if it was OK if the bassist borrowed my cab. I said yes, got there, passed the cab (Barefaced BB2) over to the bassist, and also lent him a speakon-jack speaker cable. I wanted to leave before the end, and our guitarist said he was happy to take my cab back to his place just down the road from me. So he did, and then I got a message from him to say the bassist had forgotten to give him the speaker lead but had put it behind the bar. After work today, I took a 15 mile or so detour to pick the lead up, got home, then went to pick up the cab. The guitarist brings out the cab, but the immaculate Roqsolid cover is missing. To say I am p!ssed off is an understatement. The guitarist has messaged them to ask about the cover. I am not a happy bunny. Stuff lending gear to anyone else.

When I was a teenager, people said I looked like Donny Osmond (who is three weeks younger than me). Later, other people said I looked like Meat Loaf. Then when I was forty or so, it was Jack Nicholson. The most recent comparison was Barry off East Enders (whoever he is/was). It's just been a gradual decline...

The greatest guitarist there has ever been.

I use Schallers, have done since getting my first Warwick just over 30 years ago. There was a Schaller-compatible straplock by Boston which overcame the issue with the nut coming undone by simply having two nuts per lock - tighten the first nut down, then tighten the second nut onto it and it acts as a locknut. Although I've found that using a spanner and tightening the nut really tight rather than trusting that pliers will do the job works for me.

Your 1 looks more like a combination of lack of commitment and lack of self-awareness, like a group mind Dunning-Kruger effect. Lack of ambition would be typified by a band that I left after about three years, when the set list remained identical for all that time. I came back and depped for them a few times over the next five years or so - still the same set list. Not just the same songs but the same order too. You have a more fundamental issue if nobody but you recognises that there is an issue. As for your 2, I am sometimes the adult supervision and sometimes the supervised. I've never been in a band that required more that a gentle hand on the tiller (and a couple of spare leads in the bag) - that level of mollycoddling and direction points to either deep-rooted psychological problems or them all being about ten years old. Although, come to think of it, you haven't said how old they actually are. If they're pre-pubescent, or even teenagers, their behaviour is understandable. Anything older than that and they have issues.

I do tell my wife about impending purchases when it's of more than a couple of hundred quid (be it basses or bikes), under the guise of agreeing it with her. I haven't had a refusal so far, possibly because if I can justify buying something to myself, justifying it to her is a piece of cake. Not that such things happen with great frequency, mind.

You could always just watch the original "Relax" and judge for yourselves...

Blimey, that article was written by someone with no sense of humour who didn't even spot the reference in the last sentence.

Mrs Zero worked until recently at a women's clothing retailer as the customer services manager. Said company did some of their business through Amazon. Amazon's customer service for that business was great - for the customers. However, not all customers are the angels that we bassists are, and it was not unheard of for someone to order items of clothing and then return them in a poor (read: post-party) condition for a refund. When this happened with items that the firm supplied direct, ie. not via Amazon, Mrs Zero would not be amenable to the request - after all, the company was being treated as a clothes hire firm which didn't actually make any money from the hire. However, Amazon would immediately refund the customer and charge Mrs Zero's company back - good customer relations for Amazon but very costly for Mrs Zero's company.

But, as has been said on BC thousands of times, the lower notes aren't the only reason to use a 5-string. You can do more across and less up and down.

That makes sense. I did briefly wonder if, with the PA being swept as they moved it, they were finding the acoustic sweet spot (anyone familiar with The Big Bang Theory may remember Sheldon Cooper's quest for the ideal listening position in a cinema). Only briefly, though.

And another thing that might or might not sell... A MIDI pedalboard using a similar sort of lever key as the Roland PK5 but with the chord-programming capability of the McMillen 12-Step. Should weigh 2-4 kg. And something that I wish hadn't disappeared - Johnny Shedfreak's effects pedal mounting brackets: The Pedal-Links ones are rubbish - plastic so they won't bend.