tauzero

No, but I can't remember what it was.

This was actually rather sad. We'd been asked to play at the wake of a member of a bike club - Mrs Zero and I knew quite a few members of the club from my outlaw days but not the guest of honour. Anyroadup, pretty near the end, the son of the recently departed asked us for a particular AC/DC/song which none of us knew. We explained that we didn't know it. He kept asking, offering us £50 if we played it. I think we finally played another AC/DC song that was in our repertoire.

That's subtle but very telling criticism.

I thought it lost its way part way through and got rather incoherent, and unable to decide whether it was a history of bass or a Tina Weymouth autobiography. Disappointing compared to the Copeland episode. It seemed there might be something on the evolution of bass styles, but that petered out.

Could you mount wireless and Helix onto a single board, in something like a Stagg pedalboard case?

I thought it was the size of a Status Bulging Pole Streamliner until I saw the photo of it outside the case. Cracking idea, taking photos of a black bass when it's in a black case... Much better looking than that horrible Surfcaster.

Looks like someone on one knee with their hands up. Jesus surrendering to the Romans at Gethsemane as they stood pointing their guns at him?

Do you mean new products that don't look exactly like old products? The aesthetics of the Richard Bona one don't appeal to me, but the Squier Standard clone isn't innovative. So they're pushing the boat out stylistically on one, and mooring it firmly to the jetty and dropping a few concrete blocks in it for the other one. And it's difficult to know what the average bass player can do other than praise or snipe, because most of us aren't actually in a position to bring out our own range of basses.

It appears it's dual voice coils - there was a TB thread about this: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/hartke-hydrive-112-w-switchable-ohms.852845/

Steel board, neodymium magnets glued to the pedals. What could possibly go wrong?

But it's not a "next line", is it? It's a 15-year-old line and Markbass are trying to do something with the raddled corpse, looking firmly back towards the future. Are Samsung about to bring out a clone of the third generation iPhone?

I'm not sure what the point of the second one is. Does the world really need another Fender/Squier clone? The first one seems an attempt to make a double-cut as ugly as a single-cut. Richard Bona had a huge mudslinging fest at Tecamp when he parted company with them, it may be worth getting the popcorn in now for the same thing happening with him and Fodera.

Perhaps by extracting the plastic inlays and using a light coloured wood filler to refill the slots?

Ah yes, the things we moved away from when I was 15, in 1972. How quaint.

What are these lb things that people speak of?

I used to enjoy playing She Sells Sanctuary, not for the technicality but for the energy.

I had exactly the same feelings about that song as you. In fact, I still have them, but at least I no longer have to play it.

I've only hated one bass - my first, a Rosetti 7 hollow-body which I bought in about 1971 for £2. It was overpriced. Papier-mache body, crap neck.

Never thought of that, I could have got it to write its own NIPSD.

New isolated power supply day. I've been messing around with a pedalboard which doesn't actually contain many pedals - Zoom B3n, Line 6 G50 wireless, Korg Volta bass synth going into the Aux on the B3n, and off-board a Roland PK5A to make the Korg Volta make sounds a bit like a Moog Taurus. However, I didn't want to have multiple power supplies, so I tried daisy-chaining them (with a polarity-reversing and size-changing lead I made up for the Volta). First power supply was too weak and weedy, got another one which had enough oomph but there was a huge amount of noise - even with just the wireless and B3n plugged in. So I did some research on isolated power supplies, and a post in this very forum sent me towards http://stinkfoot.se/power-supplies. I wanted something cheap, small, and isolated, and preferably with a 12V output in case I want to use my little mixer rather than the B3n Aux for the Volta. Very near the end of the page, I found the Vitoos power supplies - the DC8 is partially isolated, the Iso8 says it's fully isolated, and Stinkfoot says it is (but not verified). Under £45 off That Ebay, rather than £100+. So I bought one. It arrived today and I first took a multimeter to it. Infinite resistance between all of the pins, and also between all of the sleeves. Then I plugged it in and connected everything up, and all was quiet on the Western Front. So, for any B3n users wanting to do something similar, or indeed anyone needing to use an isolated power supply, I can say that the Vitoos Iso8 is well worth a try.

Does a power supply count?

I've just paid for a bass that I'd agreed the purchase of before Christmas. So a fail according to strict rules.

Are they really only making 300-400 instruments a year when they're selling the standard models through a dealer network? Or are they making 300-400 of the upper echelon instruments and rather a lot more standards?

I'm not exactly a frequent flyer - in recent years I've flown to Germany (Munich) and back three times, and to New York once. The Germany trips gave me no problems but the New York one finished with me in some discomfort in one ear, which took a couple of days to wear off. Didn't affect my tinnitus either way though.

That's entirely the wrong approach. If you make it your two least favourite, that's a win-win situation.