tauzero

Have you tried putting a 4mm in there? There's an initial round hollow bit (which a 5mm would go into) followed by the 4mm bit (which a 5mm wouldn't). Everybody in the civilised world uses 4mm. Hohner use 4mm on the B2.

Can cultural appropriation exist in a truly multicultural society?

I've rather fancied one for ages. Just got to see if the 35" scale causes any issues, given that my other fretlesses are 34". At least it's not a 42" scale...

That Zombie is applicable (as @tegs07 said) to any conflict situation where there's an unquestioning force doing evil things. Another Zombie (by the Cranberries) was about a specific conflict and its aftermath, and I don't hear anyone English doing any sort of introduction for it to give the context (it gets played a lot at open mics).

It's tone plywood.

I wouldn't call it hideous, but it does suffer from the fact that Les Paul came up with one of the most attractive guitar shapes ever and anything that bears a faint resemblance but is out of proportion seems really really wrong. Plus the control section of the scratchplate is truly horrendous.

I bought the Ray5 a little while ago with the intention of replacing the preamp and possibly the pickup. My initial installation of a preamp made on an OSH Park PCB didn't work, which subsequently I suspect was due to a flat battery (doh!). I bought a Classic Preamp kit from Musikding and installed that instead. I put a connector on the PCB and the battery clip so I could remove the entire scratchplate if necessary without any unsoldering. When I got the Squier Vintage Modified Modified, it had a Warman MM pickup in the bridge position. As the pole pieces weren't best spaced for it, I replaced it with an Aguilar MM pickup which was a far better fit, leaving me with a Warman pickup with both coils nicely accessible. So I connected the coils in parallel and replaced the original pickup with that. Again, that was fitted with a connector with the bridge wire going to the ground side. The pots have 1/4" shafts which aren't as easy to get knobs for as 6mm shafts. Bloody primitive measuring systems. However, I did find a set of brass flat top knobs on Ebay which look rather nice on it. I'm pleased with the sound. Will be doing some more playing around.

When I got the OLP Tony Levin, I hadn't realised that it was missing a truss rod wheel. But it was, and I needed to adjust the truss rod. I took the neck off and checked the truss rod end, which took a 4mm hex key. Grainger Guitar Parts sell truss rod wheel adaptors to fit 4mm adjusters, so I bought one (and then found that the short one that I'd bought was too short, so bought the standard one). The scratchplate covers part of the cutout for the truss rod wheel, and as the adaptor is longer than the original, it fouled the scratchplate. So I needed to do a little Dremelling. Trimmed scratchplate: Neck installed: Strung up: And everything works as it should.

Mine is a nice snug 4mm. Go smaller.

What is the bass? Which way are you turning the truss rod?

Apparently less abrasive to the fingerboard too.

Must keep away from the Gardiner Houlgate auctions, they're a dangerous place for me, or at least for the integrity of my anatomy if I keep buying basses and can't manage to sell any. Went down to near Bath to pick up this lovely Shuker Uberhorn today. Body: African blackwood topped mahogany body Neck: seven piece wenge/mahogany with CF strengthening rods, 35" scale Fretboard: phenolic resin Electrics: concealed EMG pickup system and Graphtech piezo saddles All in an original branded Hiscox hard case. There's also a card from WM Guitars whose hands it has obviously passed through giving the specs (and the price they sold it for). The strings are described as D'Addario tapewounds in the WM Guitars description, and that's still what's on it, looking a bit worn, especially the long thumb rest string. It will be getting some nickel rounds. The action is ridiculously high, mainly (I think) due to the relief being absolutely huge. The battery is in quite reasonable nick, should get a bit of use out of it. There's a couple of little dings around the edge but nothing major. For some reason, it hasn't got straplocks on it, which I see as a significant omission to be rectified very soon. Pictures are from the Shuker website and the auction website. When I summon up a bit of energy, I'll take some more.

I use rounds. That's just me though.

You can often find the shop that's selling the bass from the seller information and then go direct to them.

"Growler" was the official name for the bonnet emblem up until the JJ rebrand in 2024. Let's hope Elon Musk doesn't buy Jaguar, he'd bring back the "Swallow Sidecars" name and the "SS" emblem.

Zoom B3 or B3n - the B3n has the advantage of being easier to switch patches. You can also edit patches on a PC which is quite simple to do.

Very misleading, as the dropdown says it's quantity.

If a guitarist is playing with a capo at fret 3, a C turns into an Eb and an Em into a Gm. When I'm reading the chords over someone's shoulder because I not only don't know the song, I've never ever heard it in my life before, transposing on the fly for someone with my level of musical knowledge is rather difficult - not impossible when it's a few bars of one chord and a few bars of another, but when there's a rapid sequence of chords it all goes to pot. Not so hard when (to take two examples from yesterday) I'm thoroughly familiar with the song and just need to move my hand position, or when it's capo 1 or 2.

I use a Zoom MS-60B+, the successor to my MS-60B. I do intend to get the HX Stomp sorted but that needs an external PSU, I power the Zoom with rechargeable batteries that last four or five hours.

You must be relieved that Rishi Sunak is no longer on television.

That's Quishquosh drivers. Totally oblivious to their surroundings. Juke drivers aren't quite as bad.

Charity beer festival at the Shirley British Legion this weekend, Friday and Saturday, and quite busy for me. Friday evening I did Hey Joe with the first Chris, then it was the band to which I've been recently recruited with one and a half rehearsals for an hour. Quite a lot of jamming occurred, the audience liked it. Definitely needs a lot of tightening up. Then another hour with Graham and Tony - Graham had sent me the song sheets but I hadn't looked at them properly and missed the "capo 4" on Eight Days a Week. Sat that out as I couldn't transpose it on the fly, coped OK with Come up and see me (capo 2) and something else with capo 1. Saturday I was there for the latter part of the setting up and ran through some songs with Paul, then did the first half hour with Rick and nine short 60s songs, half an hour of rest, then half an hour with Annette where I sat out a Smiths song due to confusion over chords and capo but did the rest. Another hour and a half of rest, then back with Annette and Chris the sax for half an hour, and then I played guitar with Mrs Zero singing for another half hour, then straight on to an hour of blues with Tom and Tony. Shouldn't blues be restricted by the Geneva Convention to a maximum of half an hour at a time? Half an hour of rest, then one that had been sprung on me, playing bass for Paul and his two lady friends on ukes and guitars. Then half an hour accompanying Blind Young George. My old band played next for an hour but didn't include me, although I sneaked in for their encore. I think I played about 70 songs over the two days. Gear was Sei headless fretless 5 -> Lekato/M-Vave wireless -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> HH bass combo, footwear was the usual Caravelles. Blind Young George really is blind, and 14. Very talented. And I do have a music stand because I can't learn 70 songs that quickly (only needed it for one of George's songs though).

I'm a child of the space age - Sputnik was launched a month and a half before I was born. Even more limited with YOB basses - first split-coil Precision but who on earth wants some crappy passive 4-string?

The dots are where they are on a standard Megatar, with dots on the second, 5th, and 7th frets. There should be some form of damping between the fret closest to the nut (which would be a zero fret) and the next one. And it's definitely real otherwise it wouldn't have been in the Gardiner and Houlgate auction. Strangely, looking for an example of a Megatar that shows the damping, there's at least one other fan fret one in the wild, definitely a different one to the one in the auction: https://reverb.com/item/57475214-mobius-megatar-megatar-1997-black-brown which shows the damping.

I used a capo on a 5-string for Whole Lotta Rosie as we were doing it a semitone down and it's a nightmare to play if you don't use the open A. Then the singer decided he could cope with standard tuning so I never did a gig with the capo, but I would quite happily have done so.