tauzero

Fenders. Gibsons. Singlecuts. I don't want to dislike them, I'd like to like them, but they just look wrong to me. Warwick Streamers. The top horn makes them look as if they've got a semi. Alembics. Have big fat arses. Wals. Statuses with headstocks.

[quote name='Leowasright' post='355290' date='Dec 15 2008, 07:25 PM']Most of this surely proves Leo got it most right in 1960 with the Jazz.[/quote] No, it proves that dementia sets in early for bassists.

Stringbuster, Thomann, and UK DJ Supplies for me. No problems. The stuff I've had from Digital Village I've picked up from their shop in Brum as it was a 15 minute walk from my old office.

I do agree that it's a job of work and therefore I don't assume that I can bring the family along. This particular club, the rest of the year, allows children in to the downstairs room but not upstairs where the band plays. I expected them to be a little more liberal on NYE, rather than making it more strict. We've played at other places on NYE where they've gone completely child-friendly.

[quote name='OldGit' post='361391' date='Dec 22 2008, 08:53 PM']Behringer a-b switcher with different levels for each channel It's terrible design, changing the battery is very awkward, the mains lead falls out and the jacks have to be very well seated to work consistantly... but it was cheap.[/quote] It actually doesn't have different levels for each channel if you're going two As to one B - the level control 1 does the level exactly the same to both channels. If you're going one A to two Bs then the level controls affect each channel separately. Mine has started getting hissy when using it with a mains adaptor so has been retired. Will be using a homebrew one when I've found my hookup wire and soldered it all up.

[quote name='Absolute-beginner' post='361303' date='Dec 22 2008, 07:06 PM']Blimey, how does that work???[/quote] It's the same as playing Appalachian dulcimer, or, for that matter, keyboards.

I think allowing myself just over a year to learn that tapping version of "Jingle Bells" may be faintly optimistic, but we'll see. Cheers Alun.

[quote name='AM1' post='361091' date='Dec 22 2008, 03:34 PM']So my choice is spend coin doing the reconfig job on my right handed bass, spend coin on a left hander or go and see Harold Shipman and hope he doesn't try and finish me off![/quote] I'd suggest the last. I am a bit biased though, my mother never killed anyone in 20 years or so of being a GP and I've had mainly good experiences of the NHS. If it's a major problem for you (as it appears from the content of your posts), could you get someone to go with you for support?

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='360867' date='Dec 22 2008, 12:31 PM']Alternatively, the headstock may prove to be a useful tool to keep a rowdy frontman in check...[/quote] The jab to the ear is more effective than the clout round the back of the head, and with a headless you can get a bit more travel to get more momentum into it. Plus, doing it accidentally because you have a headstock may be fun but it reduces the deterrent effect as they acclimatise to it.

We've just found out that the venue I'm gigging at on New Years Eve won't allow children anywhere in the building at all that night. That's any age of child - no-one under 18 allowed. So Minus Zero, at 13, can't attend, therefore Mrs Zero also can't attend, so I'll be seeing the New Year in without her. The minor consolation is getting about £250, but this is one NYE gig I don't want to do again. And I'll be packing up and f***ing off just as soon as I can after midnight. The stupid thing is that it's a social club that we're playing at. Anti-social club might be a better name for it. The WMCs and social clubs round Brum really seem to have some sort of death wish, they're largely child-hostile, which means that they won't pull in anything like the numbers that they could. Blame the lack of numbers on the smoking ban, blame it on the credit crunch, don't blame it on the idiot decisions of a bunch of geriatric twats, aka The Committee.

[quote name='Deep Thought' post='360790' date='Dec 22 2008, 11:04 AM']From working in sales in the past, you can never tell who's got the money-the scruffiest little gits are frequently rolling in it. Somebody told me car salesmen are taught to look at your watch as a way of sizing up your financial status-so wear your diamond-encrusted gold Rolex when shopping for cars if you want to be taken seriously.[/quote] It's not just the financial status of whoever's playing the instrument - looking at the gear that the local teenage bands have, I'd say that quite a few of them have parents who are willing to stump up a bit of cash to help their kids get decent kit. The kid who goes into the shop today for a bit of a shred may be the one the shop owner wants to come back next weekend with a parent or two in tow. Word of mouth is also a powerful tool - I suspect that [s]Musical Exchanges[/s] [s]Sound Control[/s] Reverb Sounds in Brum has made one or two sales through me mentioning something that they have in here or on another forum, and they made one sale to me because someone on alt.guitar.bass mentioned them having the Crate Powerblocks in for £50. Plus good or bad experiences get relayed, to an ever-increasing audience as more people join web forums and the like, and that will have an effect on clientele. Personally, I can't think of a bad experience that I've had in a music shop, and I've used almost all the Birmingham ones.

[quote name='ARGH' post='359078' date='Dec 19 2008, 07:23 PM']I can beat a singer and never lose tuning...Tis a great day of joy.[/quote] It also means that the only times you'll stick the end in the singer's ear will be deliberate.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='359937' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:31 PM']I am a shop, I am an island. (line 12)[/quote] And a shop feels no pain.

[quote name='planethead' post='358993' date='Dec 19 2008, 05:30 PM']..if you kept any of those Hayman 40/40 parts and want to get rid of em... I'm interested![/quote] I sold the bass nearly 30 years ago...

It just shows that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission. I do tend to go for permission these days though, as Mrs Zero began getting tired of getting emails that started "How much do you love me?"

That's really nice, that is. It's almost tempting to buy a cheap P to do something similar to.

I went to the Fender Soundhouse a few times in my two and a half terms at the Royal Veterinary College in Caaaaaamden Tahn (75-76). That was just around the time they had the fire and Hayman went out of business, hence me picking up all the necessary parts for a Hayman 40/40 (I did want to build a twin-neck but something I picked from the stack of parts didn't fit properly and I had to take it back).

Not obscure but unusual as a cover - "Music" by John Miles. Used to do "Fireball XL5" with one band (which was actually a white soul originals band, it was just one of those things that happens sometimes), have suggested we do it with the current one.

Mrs Zero runs the telemarketing team that sells calendars on behalf of a Canadian firm, so she gets us a few done for the covers band and the ceilidh band for nowt. We send the covers band ones out to clubs that we've played for and that we'd like to play for, and the ceilidh band ones go to a few potential venues plus people who have booked us in the last year or two. The covers band has also got a 5-track CD which is going out to various clubs.

You can see where Vintage got the inspiration for the V940/V950 from... I had a Bass Collection once upon a time. Nice enough to play but it was far too light for my liking (being used to fairly weighty basses, Hayman, Fender and Warwick having been my main gigging basses) and I just never felt comfortable with it.

My Tsai is tuned B-F. However, the strings that were on it when it arrived were a little haphazard. I would expect off-the-shelf 7-strings to be supplied as B-F because strings bigger than .135 or so aren't exactly common. IIRC, Dood goes F#-C, and I'm sure there's at least one other BCer using a bottom string which came off a suspension bridge (wasn't someone talking of a C# bottom?).

Excellent. Postcode, incidentally, is NG5 2BY if that's any help to peeps.

Mine's a '60. I was the original owner, but she got stolen. I got her back many years later. The last former owner decided to try his hand at relicing on her, but fortunately there's not too much damage from then.

To me it seems odd that some tatty old piece of crap with an obviously poor quality finish has "mojo" just because if has Fender on the headstock. Would the same word be used to describe a similarly wrecked Yamaha or Ibanez or Warwick? And do Fender deliberately use sh*t paint (see Rory Gallagher's Strat for another example)?

[quote name='bremen' post='352831' date='Dec 12 2008, 03:49 PM']Excellent to see someone prepared to speak well of GG's music. It's depressing how history has been revised because of what he subsequently got up to.[/quote] +1. I found it rather depressing that some stupid old phuquer had got "Leader of the Gang" taken off the music syllabus purely on the grounds that GG was a paedo. I just don't see that the behaviour of someone 25+ years ago should make any difference/