BigRedX

Thanks. Must be a new model, as the Brad Houser model I was interested in was basically a 5-string Rumblefish with two humbuckers.

Mine wan't quite that bad. The person(s) who owned it before me had made some fairly extensive modifications including striping the original finish, removing all the logos, and modifying the scratch plate and control cavity to allow for extra electronics and controls. When I bought it had to replace the bridge and machine heads to keep it playable as well as replace all the electric components apart from the pickups, plus laminate a new top onto the scratch plate in order to hide the extra holes that had been drilled in it. If I was still using it and hadn't sold it a couple of years ago I would be looking at a refret now.

I was going to ask if the normal P is in the correct P-Bass position, but IIRC the bass is only 30" scale, so I suspect that the overall sound is going to be different to a traditional P-Bass anyway

Good luck with that. There were only 79 Brad Houser models made. I've never seen one for sale in the UK (because if I had, I'd have bought it) and none of the people selling them in the US have been prepared to ship abroad.

As an audience member I would expect a tribute act make at the minimum a decent effort to look like the band they are copying. After all if it was just the music I was interested in I could stay at home and listen to the recordings.

No more ugly than the average Fender P

To improve the basic internal acoustics even though the building itself is perfectly rectangular, you could angle one or more of the internal walls, maybe the ones that don't have either a window or a door in them?

Does anyone actually use the tags? I know lots of people put them in, but does anyone actually click on them to find "related content"? I used to a be a big tag user for some things until I discovered that adding tags to thread was one of the causes of the appearance of the right hand margin and the narrowing of the actual thread content width. Since then I have stopped including them in any threads I start.

No, the text and the ads (or whatever is in the right hand side bar) are expanding at the same rate. However the design of the site is such that the overall width of the site is always 100% of the browser window width, and with the width of the right hand side bar being a set size for a given magnification and the left hand side being fluid, then the left hand section expands or contracts to fill the rest of the available width. So changing the overall magnification of the browser window content makes the text size bigger and the ads bigger. As the ads get bigger the line-length of the text gets shorter

AFAICS the design of the P-Bass split pickup requires an even number of strings to make it work effectively (and look right). In order for it to act as a humbucker but without the loss of extreme top end characterised by guitar humbuckers which have both coils under all the strings, it has one coil detecting the E and A and the other the D and G strings. The off-set split nature also allows a "fatter" wind of the coils similar to the guitar P90 pickup. Unfortunately as soon as you try to design a version of the split P pickup for an odd number of strings you run into all sorts of problems both technical and aesthetic. The best aesthetic solution I can see would be to use a "soap bar" cover and have whatever coil arrangement you want hidden underneath. Unless you need to be able to adjust the pole-pieces there is absolutely no reason have them visible. However if having the split off-set pickup shape is an important part of the over all look of the instrument this might not be acceptable. In that case it's just a question of finding the least offensive looking (to you) solution of all of those already mentioned above. However none of these solutions address what is happening electronically and magnetically with a split pickup working with an odd number of strings. In order for the pickup to be perfectly humbucking both coils must be equal but opposite in polarity, but what do you do when one coil covers an extra string compared with the other. The strength of the pickup depends on the strength of the magnets, the number of coils of wire and the overall resistance. And here's the problem. IIRC the resistance of both halves being equal is the important factor in making the whole pickup hum-cancelling, but the number of coils in each half dictates the tonal characteristics and output level of the pickup. When both halves work for the same number of strings everything balances out, but as soon as one half has to deal with one extra string either the whole pickup will no longer be completely hum-cancelling or the tonal and output level of the halves will not be identical. Putting both halves underneath the centre (A) string means that the tonal and output characteristics of that string will be different to the others. The only solution I can see would be for both halves to be the same (3 string) size, but instead of having them overlap in the middle, would be to have the half only detecting two strings to stick up or down beyond the lowest or highest string. But then you're back to poor aesthetics again...

That's because the right hand "side bar" is also expanding even if there is nothing in it (as in your example). For me this side bar is a complete waste of space except on the home page where it some of it contains useful information. IIRC previous versions of the forum software allowed you to turn it off the bits you didn't need/want and if you removed it completely the posts then expanded to fill the whole width of the browser window.

I can't believe that this wasn't a massive (indie) hit. Catchy tune with clever lyrics. John Peel played it constantly for several moths. It was Single Of The Week in NME, and Any Trouble even covered it on their debut album: 23 Jewels released 2 more singles to almost complete indifference. Singer, songwriter Nick Simpson is now a well respected classical composer...

This latest update still hasn't fixed the inconsistency with whether or not you get a warning message when marking a forum as read depending on which browser you use and whether you click the button at the top within the forum or icon next to the forum name.

I've found it easier and cheaper to learn a bit of rudimentary keyboard technique, rather than spend ages messing about with pedals and having to modify your bass (or guitar) playing style. Then you can buy a cheap modern synth with user programable memories and have the right sound available every time at the touch of a button, no worries about tracking/ghost notes etc.

Based on those two statements Basschat should probably dump the ability to have signatures completely. After all if you can't do anything creative with them and over half the audience can't even see them, then what is the point?

I suppose that's down to differing expectations. I would never click an image expecting a larger version I would always expect that if it was clickable link that it was going to take me to a new page. I'd also use the ability to view the url of the link in the information bar at the bottom of the browser window before clicking anything. To me this is a dumbing-down of the forums to protect the hard of thinking who aren't viewing them on a device capable of displaying all the information properly.

Thanks. However using BBcode it used to be possible to combine an image with link to another web page - i.e. I could make a banner for my signature that was hosted on an image hosting website, which when clicked would take you to my band's website. Without BBcode I can't see how this is possible anymore.

If BBcode has been depreciated, has it been replaced with something else? and if so where can get the "user manual"

What is this "amp" that you speak of?

In the same vein as The Babysitters and The Door And The Window, I give you the Danny & The Dressmakers with a song whose sentiments will be close to many Basschatters hearts: Featuring Graham Massey later to be a member of 808 State. And now stop before someone posts tracks from my first band (who were contemporaries of these)...

Am I 14 again in the mid 70s with the benefit of hindsight, or 14 in 2021 with 45+ years of experience? It makes a big difference IMO.

I made a couple of guitar cases in the 70s and cases for all the synths and other high-tech equipment I was gigging in the 80s. IME the biggest problem was the weight vs the level of protection for the equipment. Anything that provided a decent amount of protection weighed almost as much as the instrument it was designed to fit - in the case of one of the guitars a bit more! The other trade off was between having something tailor-made for the contents and the fact that no matter how much time and effort I put into a case it was never as professional looking as the commercially available ones. The main advantage to having home-made cases for the synths and high-tech stuff was that we could brightly colour-code them, which: 1. Made it relatively difficult for someone to walk off un-noticed with one of our cases. 2. Meant we could arrange the load in so that the right gear went to the right place on stage - all the yellow cases went one side and the red cases went the other - very useful when several of the cases were identical in size. 3. Some of the cases doubled as equipment stands when emptied and made the stage set a bit more interesting looking.

If the material is difficult to cut or sticky like some or the lower-cost plastics it will affect the ease and possibly the stability of tuning.

My experience is that unless you have an established fan base that can be counted in thousands, there is no profit to be be made from on-line usage of music whether it be downloads or streaming. However if you are gigging and can put on an entertaining show then you'll have no problem making a profit from selling records or CDs at gigs. I will be seriously considering for the next album length project I do only having one or two tracks available on-line. If you like the music enough to want the whole album you'll have to buy a physical copy.

The advice I gave in my first post in this thread hasn't really changed. Unless getting your music on line is totally an exercise in "vanity publishing" and you have absolutely no interest in making any money out of it, I'd go for a single upfront fee and a low percentage of the individual plays/downloads. I suppose I'm of an age where I still compare getting digital distribution with the cost of pressing a couple of hundred records or CDs in which case even the most costly service looks to be a absolute bargain. However, I ought to point out that none of the music I have on-line (with CD Baby and Catapult) has yet made back it's original set-up fee in downloads or streams, although the Terrortones "VampireMan" single is now fairly close after almost 10 years!