spinynorman

I briefly had a white Epi. Really had no problems with the sound or ergonomics, it just felt like dating an 18 year-old (I'm 58). Nice in theory, but ... Those who like the everything about them except the neck, try to find a Greco. They're apparently more P-bass profile, while keeping all the other Gibsonish characteristics.

Wood makes a difference. I've had a few basses with either mahogany body/maple neck, or all mahogany, and they felt much more resonant. The all mahogany neck through Gibson IV I had hummed like a tuning fork. The basswood bodied P I've got is a bit livelier than the 51 RI.

[quote]There could be a solution at hand, a guy a few miles away is selling his Ashdown Mag rig... a 15" cab, a 2x10 cab and a 600 evo11 head. He's selling them seperately so I'm guessing either the cabs or the head would probably help?[/quote] Are these MAG cabs? I had a MAG300 head with MAG210T and MAG115 cabs. I used that rig in a couple of outdoor gigs, but always with proper outdoor PA support. But I never had any trouble hearing myself on stage. When the head packed up I continued using the MAG cabs with a Hartke HA3500 and that rig was good too. Both actually got quite a lot of compliments, for budget gear. I've only just sold the cabs on eBay and they fetched £87 and £67 respectively (+shipping), so they're not exactly expensive and come up fairly often. And they're light (or were, I think the new ones are heavier), the 115 particularly is an easy 1 person lift. I'd get the cabs as, if you change the amp, you could easily end up no better off (on the basis the PA speakers are the most likely source of the problem). Also, unless you desperately need to sell them on, could you use the PA cabs to improve the bass on the PA?

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='889013' date='Jul 7 2010, 09:58 PM']My peeve is when someone hacks out a pick up fills it put some paint over the filler that doesn't match and then advertises it as 'custom'[/quote] I was just thinking the same thing. I'm surprised no one has set up a company to import Chinese clones, called it Rare Guitars, and cleaned up on Ebay.

In about 1965 I bought an imported Jap no-name acoustic 12-string for £10. About 3 years later a suddenly ex friend sat on it and bust the neck. It was repaired, but was never as good. In 1973 I bought a Gibson J50 for £200, recently sold for £750. Not that good an investment really. Must have been about 1968 my father bought me a Grundig portable cassette recorder, which was cutting edge technology. I spent large parts of every weekend recording songs off the radio, mainly John Peel's Top Gear. Unfortunately Grundig's cassette format was different from Philips', which became the standard, and it quickly became impossible to buy blank cassettes for it. So I was stuck with the audio equivalent of Betamax.

Never liked Prince anyway. My wife assures me, after my scathing comments about not being able to give them away, that this is a sound business strategy to drive bums on seats for the tour. Reminds me of Doonesbury's Jimmy Ray Thudpucker, who last I heard had put all his back catalogue in the Internet for free and reinvented himself as a "ringtone artist". [url="http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/thecast/jimmy.html"]http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/thecast/jimmy.html[/url]

This is why I rarely attempt projects or mods. Good fun though, and if you're going to bodge it, you might as well do it properly.

Bought a Nemesis 2x10 from Harry. I completely ballsed up the pickup by giving the courier the wrong address and he didn't complain at all, at least not to me. Very patient and understanding, plus great cab at good price, very well packed, wonderful all round. Thanks again. Phil

Behringer is a mixed bag. I had some of their pedals, which were nasty and a Bass V-Amp, which was ok if you like amp modellers, but to me it sounded synthetic. I've still got a Mic100 tube preamp, which is very good and a SM58 clone which I bought new for £20 and which sounds better than the real SM58s we have.

[quote name='JTUK' post='881326' date='Jun 29 2010, 08:34 PM']Trades will involve the same amount of trust as a 'buy', IMV.[/quote] Maybe, but I can see why it wouldn't feel like that. As a buyer you send money and trust you get something in return, so there's always an element of risk. As a seller you don't ship till you get the money, which isn't risk free, but it feels more secure. A trade is like shipping before you've had the money. Of course the other party is exposed to the same risk, so it sort of evens out. Having seen the lengths people will go to to sell on here rather than eBay, where they would probably sell quicker for more money, I guess most transactions go through ok. Mine all have.

[quote name='Bloodaxe' post='878604' date='Jun 27 2010, 08:23 AM']Ctrl+m or View > Show Mixer. Not very intuitive I admit, but it's there. Pete.[/quote] Ah. I assumed that was just the Windows mixer.

"We don't ... need no ... intonation"

Downloaded TuxGuitar. It's a very blatant GPro rip-off, except I can't see a way to mute or solo tracks. I don't think it's going to win me over, tbh, though I'm sure I'd use it of I didn't already have GPro.

[quote name='dumelow' post='875754' date='Jun 23 2010, 07:26 PM']Get yourself on tuxguitar mate, its freeware and opens guitarpro files no problem[/quote] Thing is, I paid for GuitarPro so long ago I can't remember the pain.

Yes, seems like a reasonable response to me, but sounds like he hasn't made the connection between the query and being bullied into making a one-off pickup in his spare time. ^_^ Must say I like my 51 RI P a lot better since I started playing it through a Markbass combo, rather than a Hartke HA3500 and Ashdown MAGs, and I'm not convinced the SD Antiquity made that much difference.

I use the tuner to mute (Korg DT10) but also have a planet waves lead which has a mute button on the jack. I find the stomp button easier though.

I use Guitar Pro. It's good, but I suppose the downside is you have to pay for it. I've been getting files from GProTab.net.

Antoria, looks ok [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Antoria-Star-Bass-/260622366848?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3cae4db880"]Star Bass[/url]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='874350' date='Jun 22 2010, 12:38 PM']Just be patient. I've had a Westone Thunder 1 (guitar) for £9, a 1963 Watkins Rapier for about £12, a Tokai-built Hondo Tele & an early 70s MIJ Gibson 335 copy for £30 for both, and plenty more. Car boots are brilliant. J.[/quote] When I was 14 I really wanted a Watkins Rapier, having seen a picture of one in the Selmer catalogue, rather than any informed choice. I had one of those nice through-neck Korean Kays. Changed the bridge, which would take the skin off your hand in the course of an evening, and the pickups, and then it was a decent bass. It cost me a lot more money indirectly, as it was trying to find out what it was that brought me to bass forums, where I also found out what else I could have.

My first short scale was a 1970s Japcrap EB-3 look-alike, possibly Ibanez (no, really), which I should never have replaced with an Epi Elitist EB-3, but I did. Didn't really get on with the Epi as well as I did the Japcrap one, partly due to the neck dive. Also had a Tanglewood (but I think Cort really) ABG, which was good, except I didn't like the deep body. Now have a DeArmond Starfire, which took some adjusting of pickup height to get it to sound right, but it is good for smaller, quieter gigs. When I had the Epi I found it very difficult to adjust between long scale and short scale (kept making mistakes) but haven't had that problem with any of the others. Really want the JapCrap EB-3 back, but it is a specific one - the body is narrower and longer than an EB-3 copy should be - that and the small tuners probably account for the better balance.

My daughter came back from Download raving about seeing RATM, + AC/DC, Crooked Vultures and Slash were the other highlights. I'm too old for muddy fields, but drove to Manchester to see Audioslave long ago, with TC still in Fender land.

[quote name='tauzero' post='867001' date='Jun 14 2010, 01:33 PM']Warwick did a Jack Bruce sig bass which (looking at the neck dimensions) seems to have the nice slim neck of the early stuff. One minor point that they may have overlooked in producing a Jack Bruce sig Thumb was the number of frets. It has 26 more than JB's own Thumb... Oh, and JB's original Thumb has the one-piece bridge that Warwick for some reason ditched: So, how close should a sig instrument be to the actual instrument that inspired it?[/quote] I think that's a common misunderstanding about sig models, it's not what the artist plays, it's what the manufacturer wants to sell and the artist is prepared to endorse. Hence a long history of arguments and fallings out over signature models. Didn't Gibson try to get JB to endorse something, I seem to remember the Grabber, but he didn't like it? And then there was the very expensive EB-3 tribute Warwick did, which sat on a stand at the side of the stage all through the Cream reunion, while he played the Thumb and the EB-1.

Actually I did seriously consider buying the Mike Dirnt Fender. I quite liked the idea of the slab body with a split pickup. And I thought it would make me look 30 years younger.