tauzero

I think the sarcasm may have escaped you. Look at the first post on page 6. If an instrument looks tatty, I see no reason whatsoever not to have it refinished. Still, I avoid the issue by avoiding painted instruments, and taking reasonable care of my basses.

Suggesting it. On BC.

How can you possibly suggest a refin?

That was exactly the problem with some tracks I was trying to play a month or two ago. After reading the bit in the manual that says they've got to be 44.1, I loaded them into Audacity and changed the project sampling rate (bottom left of the window) from 48 to 44.1.

Our guitarist is a retired tax inspector.

Neck on the B2AV is 45mm but neck size isn't just about width, it's depth too.

I'm a motorcyclist but I don't make my living from it. I might have an advanced qualification in it but that doesn't make me any more of a motorcyclist than someone who'd doing their CBT. So I think I'm probably a musician, as I can play a coherent tune on an instrument of my choice. I can't read dots and I know a little bit of musical theory, but I have written songs. If you think that calling yourself a musician denigrates those who have years of training - what is the threshold for being a musician?

And my Antoniotsai 5-strings. And my Sei 5-strings. And the Peavey Grind 5-string.

It's quite a while ago that I had an XT25. I think the XT25 was slightly slimmer. It also felt really, really rigid.

As four-string necks go, the B2 is quite skinny. As five-string necks go, the Jack is quite chubby. If you find an equivalently skinny 5-string neck, you'll be happier. I have a B2AV, same neck profile as the Jack 4, and while it's perfectly usable, I only have it as a very compact back-up bass.

It's about making some more money for Kevin Rowland.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/27/jocky-wilson-other-rock-myths

You need one if you're playing below bottom E and don't want to tune to other than EADG or use octavers/pitch shifters. You use one if your bass is equipped with one and you use it. I use it on trad music for ceilidhs, reggae, rock, pop, and jazz.

At the complete opposite end of the scale, why is it that people have a problem with instruments being refinished?

Just popped in there. The layout seems oddly familiar.

And that's unlikely to change 😁

It seems a lot of us have played there - I played a ceilidh there about ten years ago.

Hit things at the right speed and stay at the right speed. Get the right feel for the basic beat. Put in fills as appropriate and come back out of them in the right place. Creativity is going to depend on the situation - I'd like to play with the drummer that I play with in the Marillion tribute band in a more flexible situation (covers or originals), but we're trying to be faithful to the original. Almost all the drummers I've played with have been good. Currently I'm with the above tribute, an originals band whose drummer was originally the slide guitarist but finished up drumming after the previous drummer threw his toys out of the pram, and an eclectic covers band with a cajon player. Although they're wildly differing, I haven't got any problems playing with any of them - see sentences one to three in my first paragraph. A couple of years ago, the covers band I was in underwent a series of drummer changes. All other personnel remained the same. It was interesting playing with three different drummers over three or four years, the first being a rock drummer, the second with more of a soul background, and the third being rock and prog. All three adapted well to the music (rock and power pop with the odd bit of soul) and did the speed right, got the right feel, and put in appropriate fills, but were by no means clones of each other. I could definitely tell them apart, but I really couldn't rank them in order of preference. Other things which drummers should do - when rehearsing, don't keep bloody hitting things between songs. Get to gigs nice and early to set up.

Headless 5-strings are the way to go.

'Relax' went through three phases - first as a somewhat lyrically ambiguous song, then it got banned for being about sex, then Holly Johnson revealed it was about gay sex.

You lose out on 90% of the benefits of a 5-string though. The ability to go below bottom E is as nothing compared to the power of the Force ability to play in a greater selection of neck positions. Still, as long as people keep buying 5-strings, misunderstanding them, and selling them on, I'll have a plentiful supply of little-used 5-strings to buy.

IANAL, but the invitation to treat etc still applies. It is, however, inadvisable to attempt to haggle over the price of items bought from a supermarket. There are a couple of exemptions - antiques, good sold at auction, products provided as part of a service. Having done literally minutes of research into this, there doesn't seem to be any way that it's legal not to price up instruments in PMT, either individually or with a price list (although they might be getting round this by having prices available online - the requirement seems to be that you can find the price without asking a member of staff). https://www.lawdonut.co.uk/business/marketing-and-selling/consumer-protection/unfair-trading-trade-descriptions-and-pricing-faqs#UTTDP12 says, in part: "More generally, failing to display prices could constitute unfair trading if the omission is likely to affect how customers behave. For example, customers might not choose to use your service if they knew in advance how much it would cost."

The first few I learnt weren't with the assistance of the records, it was just the guitarist saying what the chords were and me making something up. Back in the USSR, All Right Now (and I played in the verse), Sweet Jane, and some originals that we wrote spring to mind (it was 1976 so details are a bit hazy).

All the time, except when I'm playing a 4-string (TBH I'd rather play Marillion songs on a 5 but Pete Trewavas plays them on a 4 so to be a proper tribute, except fatter and balder, I have to too).

Pah! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_(guitar)