tauzero

Two of my bands rely on guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. If we had either a bad vocalist or a bad drummer, that would be the most noticable. The third consists of melodeon, appalachian dulcimers, guitar. and bass. Generally speaking, the melodeon is the most important. We can make do with any two of the other three. However, melodeon isn't on the list of choices, which is a serious oversight. I imagine there's bassists for Peruvian nose flute bands looking in vain for "Peruvian nose flute" too, and "pan pipes" is mysteriously absent. As for the duo of myself and Mrs Zero, that's hard - I've done an instrumental bit and she's done an acapella bit.

I really enjoyed it, as did Mrs Zero. We took the rather sensible option of heading back to the hotel and bed after the curry, so we were moderately intact the following morning. Thanks to Alan, Mrs Skelf, and Pirate Perry for the organisation, and Stevie Williams for talking and playing, his identical twin brother Haydn for bringing a selection of nice skinny string instruments, and Chris May for bringing along all those Overwaters. Those Aspiration instruments look the business (and play well too). And, just in the interests of "other instruments are available", I had a play on a few ACGs and the asymmetric neck profile definitely works. A good job I have no money, really, it saves me having to make any decisions.

My '87 JD Thumb is a keeper - bought new back then by trading in the three basses I then had plus getting out a loan. I don't use a 4-string fretted bass at the moment but it's still the instrument closest to my heart and would be the one to save from a burning house. Its fretless counterpart is also a keeper. Reprofiled defretted neck so it's the same as a JD. It hasn't got the one-piece bridge, of course, but you can't have everything. Not unless you've got lots more money than me, anyway. The five-string Antoniotsai bass that I use with one of my bands is also a keeper.

My personal experience of a similar case (er, no pun intended): I sold a bass, case included (although I think I basically just said I'd be shipping it in a hard case). It's some time ago but I'm pretty sure I wrapped the case (which was one of those plywood things) in cardboard. Posted it off, insured. Got a message back from the buyer to say that the bass had arrived OK but that the case had been badly damaged. I offered a partial refund and asked for him to give me enough information for me to make a claim on the insurance, but the buyer wasn't bothered about pursuing it (said his intention was always to get a better case anyway).

As a former CPL person (before it dropped the "League"), I can tell you that homing kittens is easy. Cute little balls of fluff (um, perhaps I should rephrase that). The policy used to be to have adult cats neutered before they went out to new homes, and to ask the new owners of kittens to have them neutered at six months. How much of the time this actually happened, I don't know. And of course, lots of kittens are rehomed through the traditional postcard in the newsagent's window with the consequent embarrassment when it turns out that the clientele for small furry pussy is not the same as that for Michelle's lessons in French.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='1115118' date='Feb 4 2011, 12:06 PM']The body made me think of a modified Washburn B20 Stage: In fact I'd bet that's what the design's based on - which is why the identical lower half works, and the top looks like a chopped up mistake. The headstock, on the other hand, is just a complete mess.[/quote] I think it's the total absence of top horn that really messes up the shape on this one. Angular bouts can work - for example the ACG Gallus (although it's asymmetric):

The D string's going to have a jolly time passing through the nut.

Does anyone want to give Jon one of his blood pressure pills, before he says something about "Tokai" and "Rockinbetter"?

I really would love that. Except that I suspect it would weigh nearly as much as me, and anything more than 2p is outside my price range. Can't understand all the hatred there is for basses which don't look like bloody Fenders (and for Fenders which anyone has dared to improve, because, let's face it, pretty much anything sensible you do to one will improve it). How depressingly conservative.

Describing it as "as new" sort of misses the point about designer mojo, doesn't it?

At least it has a chrome knob plate.

[quote name='BottomE' post='1113719' date='Feb 3 2011, 12:16 PM']The listing said that "the bass will be shipped in a hard case." That is the only mention of the case in the listing.[/quote] Did you offer local collection? Just thinking that if you did, that demonstrates that the case isn't implicitly part of the auction, it's only to describe the packaging method for posting. If the dispute is "item not as described", it's difficult to see how he's got a leg to stand on, as the item was the bass and the description of the item (as opposed to the description of the shipping container) didn't include the case. As the auction was for a used item, the buyer surely cannot justify asking for a new case - if it were explicitly part of the auction and not explicitly described, then it should conform to the definition of a used item.

[quote name='paul_5' post='1113695' date='Feb 3 2011, 11:55 AM']I haven't seen Chuck Norris on here yet... I may be seconds away from death...[/quote] If Chuck Norris wanted you dead, he'd just have told you and left the rest to you.

[quote name='Sean' post='1111783' date='Feb 1 2011, 11:11 PM']I am, in reality... ...Carol Kaye. I've been taking names and getting to know all you Jamerson freaks since BassChat was BassWorld![/quote] I thought Carol Kaye wrote 90% of the posts on Basschat.

Coincidentally, as the REM thread is one thread away as I type this, REM's "Sidewinder sleeps tonite". Nothing that's hard to play but I seem to be having a bit of a mental crash of gears going from the end of the verse into the chorus - nothing that a bit more playing along won't sort out.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1104672' date='Jan 27 2011, 02:34 AM']Explain more. As far as I know the inducatance is the thing that generates a voltage that makes a pickup work. Unfortunately they aren't a perfect inductor, so they also have a capacitance (as a component of impedance) which is what attenuates high frequencies. But electronics understanding is a work in progress for me.[/quote] A coil is an inductor. Insofar as two wires near each other have capacitance, there will be capacitance knocking around the circuit somewhere but it'll be insignificant. An electrical current flowing in a conductor will result in a magnetic field being produced around that conductor. A coil makes use of that by wrapping the conductor round in a loop so that the magnetic field is reinforced. This results in an inductor, which has higher resistance the higher the frequency of alternating current that's fed through it (there's probably a good article explaining that on Wikipedia, as long as it hasn't been vandalised with speculation on Jordan's sex life). That's the electronic characteristic of a pickup coil. Oh, and the magnetic field, when it collapses, produces a big voltage - this is used for the HT side of car ignition and for zapping your finger if you switch your amp off at the mains and immediately unplug it with your fingers across live and neutral. As for how the pickup picks up, that's related but different. The pickup acts as a dynamo. The magnet in the pickup induces magnetism in the strings (which is why they have to be steel), and so you have a moving magnet next to a conductor which induces a current. The conductor is wound round lots of times because that increases its sensitivity. A capacitor is an open circuit to DC. It consists of two plates - as the voltage on one side varies up and down, so electrons are either pulled or pushed from the other plate, so current flows. As the frequency rises, so the resistance to current flow falls. See Wikipedia again

[quote name='icastle' post='1108439' date='Jan 30 2011, 06:34 PM']...in next weeks programme 4-string-thing shows how to solder a phono plug to a length of pylon cable... [/quote] I've soldered an RS232 plug to a cable that was going down a mineshaft - had heavy duty sheathing on it, I had to strip the outer back with a junior hacksaw. I'll happily use an instrument cable to connect an amp and a speaker if I just want to find out if one or the other is working or has significant nasty noises (assuming I haven't got a speaker lead to hand and don't want to spend ten minutes delving through bags and cases for one). I certainly wouldn't stress test anything while using an instrument cable for a speaker lead, or do anything loud with it come to that. "Informed pragmatism", that's what I call it.

[quote name='icastle' post='1110896' date='Feb 1 2011, 12:50 PM']I'm damn sure that some of these companies decide what they want to quote as an output and then fiddle around with different ways of expressing output power until they hit a figure they like the look of... [/quote] If you can't find a way of expressing it by messing with p-p vs RMS and transient vs constant, then make up your own system. Check out PC speakers on That Ebay - they've invented a whole new definition of the watt by using "PMPO", which allows you to have 860W of speakerage driven from your USB port (power available: 5V at 500mA for USB2.0 or 900mA for USB3.0).

[quote name='david_l_perry' post='1109660' date='Jan 31 2011, 04:25 PM']I do keep going over to Manchester for the UK bass day...and I am off to Harrogate again....funnily enough I don't go for the local views.. [/quote] At Moffat, the Devil's Beeftub is quite a view, and the A701 is a fun road on a bike - though it apparently got named "Fireblade Alley" in the tail end of last century by the local polis, who apparently picked up more wrecked 'Blades on that road than were ever sold in Scotland.

[quote name='Dusty' post='1107927' date='Jan 30 2011, 10:55 AM']Can I post the first gripe with these..... Changed the strings on my White one for some Rotosound Black Nylons. Looks and sounds fantastic, but the Ball Ends are too small to fit into the things on the back of the body, so they all are sticking out [/quote] If you're willing to do a little modding, you can probably sort that out. Just look for "bass string ferrules" on That Ebay and see if you can get some slightly larger ones that will take your string ends. Um, that's assuming that my assumption that you meant that the bits on the end of the strings were too big to fit into the ferrules is correct.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1106218' date='Jan 28 2011, 02:02 PM']To me, that classic Warwick sound comes from the Thumb, with it's wenge/ovangkol/bubinga construction and pickup placement.[/quote] No ovangkol in [i]proper[/i] Thumbs...