tauzero

Many years ago at rehearsals with one band, I used to switch off the guitarist's fuzz box to get him to play stuff right and not hide the mistakes.

Went on for the second half of a gig and silence from my bass. Backup bass - also silence. Swapped wireless to the spare and got sound. When I got home, I tested the suspect wireless and it was perfect. My conclusion was that after unplugging the two dongles to save batteries on the bass and the effects pedal, I had plugged them back in without looking to check that the one marked "Tx" in big friendly letters was on the bass and the one marked "Rx" was on the pedal. As bassist, I am of course the default sound engineer. With another band at another gig, we started the second set and all was well (we thought) until somebody told me that they couldn't hear the vocals out front. The channel mute switches only worked on the FOH, not the monitors. Turned up at one gig with what I thought was my bass amp, then found that I'd picked up the wrong silver case and had a case of microphones. I did have a spare amp with me, but sadly no means of connecting said amp to the cab, so that was a dash back home to get the amp. And I've done the wrong venue thing as well, fortunately only about five miles from where I should have been.

Get a 5-string Corvette.

Which is my point - simply saying turn left to right is ambiguous as there are two directions that you can go in to rotate something from left to right, clockwise and anticlockwise. Or deasil and widdershins if you prefer, or maybe dextrorotatory and laevorotatory.

Thanks, that's worth knowing.

I decided to take the bull by the horns and remove the neck, in the hope that I would put it back together within ten years. A 4mm allen key is the right fit for the truss rod end, which is inaccessible with the neck on, so I looked for a spoke wheel adaptor. There was one mentioned on here but it was from the EU (guitarsandwoods.com) and with shipping it came to about £40. More hunting produced one from Grainger Guitar Parts for £8 all in, so that's now ordered.

Although the new one hasn't improved your typing.

Whether it's single or double action. Hold a spanner pointing to the left and then rotate it 180 degrees clockwise. Return it to the left and rotate it 180 degrees anticlockwise. What are the two finishing positions?

You can create parallel paths on the Stomp, apply EQ to each to give HPF and LPF, and recombine them at the output or send them to separate outputs.

Can't beat colour coding. As everything's XLR-XLR it doesn't really matter but I've adopted a system of orange = FOH, yellow = monitors, and whatever you've brought for mics (singer red, 2nd guitar green, me purple). Also I have two lengths of IEC cables, 2m (colour coded red using insulting tape) and 3m (colour coded yellow).

Oh yes, that reminds me: Trace Elliott - supposed to be the pinnacle of bass sound. The 4x10 combo was made from depleted uranium and it didn't take long carrying it up and down stairs to the then future Mrs Zero's flat and not getting a sound that I particularly liked to make me decide that it was no longer for me. Being a slow learner, I bought a head with the GP12 preamp, and didn't much like the sound it made (on reflection, it's possible that the cab didn't help).

What powerbank did you use?

Just to make it even more complicated, you can turn it either clockwise or anticlockwise to go from left to right.

If you're building effects units then a step drill and preferably a pillar drill are essentials. Also, if you want square or rectangular holes which are fairly large (eg for displays), power files are excellent. Especially if you're better at using them than me.

I use tubing that fits over the screws. Like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285761252182 Cut to length so the pickup will be a bit higher than required when the tubing is uncompressed, then tighten down the required amount.

And seeing as we're allowed to follow the herd, get things, and then find we like them: Sei basses - there was a lot of mention of them on BC, as they seemed to be the next flavour of the month after Shuker. So when one came up at Bass Direct, I went and tried it, and bought it, and bought another and another and another. I could probably have afforded half a second-hand Fodera withnthe amount I've spent on them. Barefaced cabs - Alex has been flavour of the month for quite a lot of months, with LFSys now snapping at his heels, and some time ago I bought a BB2. Later, a One10 came up at an unrefusable price so I had that. The One10 proved insufficient for my needs (couldn't keep up with quite a quiet band) so it went, but the BB2 lasted quite a bit longer until I got a GR Bass combo.

Echoing another couple of posters: Flatwounds - tried flats and don't get on with them, either the feel or the sound Fender Precisions - don't like the necks on Precisions (especially the 5s) and I'm exactly overwhelmed by the sound, especially with flats Helix LT - fantastically powerful multi-effects, bought as a step up from an HX Stomp, but for me it doesn't have any advantages over the HX Stomp and it's far bigger and heavier

Flatwound strings on decent basses. Just stick to putting them on Fenders.

AliExpress returns are (in my recent experience) to a UK address with a prepaid label. Also, for cheap stuff, they may not even want it sent back. Most recent thing I sent back was a USB audio interface that was very noisy, no quibble, got a return label, posted it back and was refunded when I posted it. So @PaulWarning, you might as well do a return if you don't mind dropping it off at a post office.

A little while ago, I got an OLP Tony Levin. There's a little too much relief on the neck so I decided to adjust it. Being an Allen key adjustment kinda guy, I hadn't paid attention to the truss rod adjuster. Thinking it was an allen key adjustment, I moved the scratchplate to try and get access to the adjuster, but after some struggling and a bit of research on the interwebs, it became obvious that it's a spoke wheel adjuster. Is it possible to get a spoke wheel adjuster that will fit onto the current truss rod, or am I looking at a replacement truss rod or neck?

Common sense. I play with one band where the BL just bungs the leads into a bag and I'm glad it's not me who has to extract them.

Ought to be a catamaran with one hull marked "His" and the other "Hers" (making unwarranted but not unreasonable assumptions about the gender and sexuality of the Stugots).

The thermionic valve was invented by an Englishman, John Ambrose Fleming, so "valve" is the correct word.

Interesting that the Zoom MS-200D+ is in there as it's still a current pedal. And it's a bit surprising that there's a Les Paul that you have to pre-order, I'd expect a clearance item to be in stock. As for that Bacchus, couldn't they have just left the scratchplate off rather than putting on something that looks thoroughly cheap and nasty?

You have to watch out for that. If you go back to the original item, you'll probably find there's a selection of wirelesses and the most attractive is shown as the default but the cheapest is the one autoselected for you. I fell foul of this when I finished up with a couple of Amplug type things when I wanted something else.