BigRedX

If the case is part of the sale, then it should be wrapped up in cardboard.

Depends on when the various photographs of the cars and guitars were taken. Also as you can see from the swatch chart above the colours fade by different amounts over time.

No. Relief and the angle of the neck in relation to the body are two completely separate things and do not affect each other.

@leftybassman392 I don't think that you've hijacked the thread at all. More like some interesting observations that probably many of us who were at school in the 50s 60s and 70s had never considered. I think also that in the more academically orientated schools, like the Grammar School I attended, music was very much second class in terms of importance and facilities along with subjects like RE, woodwork, metalwork and art each of which took up no more than one period per week over the course of the school year. And when it came to picking your 'O' Level or GCSE subjects they were very much reserved for those pupils "too thick" to be assured passes in the sciences and arts. I know that even if I had wanted to do Music 'O' Level, it would not have been possible as for me the only choice was between History and Geography as my 10th subject - school and parents had already decided which other 9 I would be doing.

I have agree with you. The guitar version sports a standard tune-o-matic bridge, and I have no idea why the bass version didn't do the same. There are several aspects to the design that show the builder's strengths lie in engineering and not traditional lutherie. However the Born To Rock instruments are radical in more than just looks. The design does away completely with the need for a truss rod since the string pull is countered by the arm above the neck and does not act on the neck itself. That does mean that if a string breaks the whole instrument goes really badly out of tune. Overall it was a great playing and sounding bass and I'd still have it if it was a 5-string. BTW just to reassure everyone the bass isn't actually sitting in the water, but supported on 3 small posts raising it a couple of millimetres above the surface. The "trails" the flow of the water made around these were removed in Photoshop to make it look as though it was floating.

Overall string tension will almost definitely change. The average high C string is a much higher tension than that of a low B.

You'll hate this photo then:

Mostly no. On the face of it my school musical education in the 70s (I was at Grammar School from 72 to 79) was much the same as the majority of other posts from people my age. Our music teacher was uninterested in anything that wasn't classical, and the only time we got to hear any pop music in class was when something in the charts had "borrowed" a pice of classical music for its main theme (Greg Lake with "Troika" by Prokofiev and Beach Baby by First Class which used part of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony) when he would take great delight in "proving" to us how second rate pop music was that it had to use tunes from the "greats" to get noticed. Everyone had the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. However if you wanted to learn anything other than violin, you needed an aptitude test to see if you were worth teaching. For some reason I chose the trombone. My test consisted of seeing if I could manage to blow a note on the mouthpiece (yes after a number of attempts) and if my arms were long enough to reach the full extent of the slide which I couldn't manage and therefore that was it with regards to learning an instrument. No alternatives that might have been more suitable for me were suggested. TBH right to the point that I went to Grammar School, music of any kind had completely passed me by. My parents had taken me to a number of classical concerts which I found boring and was uncomfortable sitting still for so long on a chair where my feet didn't touch the ground. Pop music also held no interest for me until I heard T.Rex, Slade and The Sweet, and then I started to get obsessed. My parents had much the same attitude towards "popular" music as school did. Somehow at the age of 13 I persuaded my mum to let me accompany her to "folk guitar" evening classes (which she was doing to improve her employment chances as a Primary School teacher) where I spent an entire year struggling unsuccessfully to play any of the dull (IMO) songs we were being taught on a catalogue-bought steel strung guitar with unplayably high action. And that might have been the end of it, except for the fact that during the summer holidays I borrowed a copy of "The Beatles Complete" songbook, and suddenly it all clicked and I could finally play something vaguely recognisable. I pestered my parents to buy me a half-way decent acoustic guitar for my 14th birthday along with my own copy of the Beatles songbook plus the music to "Simon And Garfunkle's Greatest Hits" album and surprisingly I was successful, although it was the last time that they supported any of my musical activities. One of the few things I remember being taught at school in music lessons was the names of the notes on the treble clef, and using that I had worked out that I didn't need to learn how to play any of the "difficult" chords like Eb, Ab, Bb and C# but I could simply transpose the song up or down a semitone and play it with the easy ones I already knew and could play. Armed with that knowledge I could now strum my way convincingly through all the songs I knew in both books, and therefore I was ready to start writing my own songs and form my first band with a few classmates from school. Because there was zero chance of persuading my parents to buy me what I really wanted, which was an electric guitar and an amp, I sold all my Mecano and model railway stuff and raised just enough money to buy either a solid electric guitar, but no amplifier, or an amplifier and a pickup for my acoustic. Since I couldn't see the point in owning a solid electric guitar with no means of amplifying it, chose the latter. It still didn't make me sound much like the guitarists on the records I was listening to, more like the acoustic sound of the guitar but louder and with a slightly less pleasant tone. A home-made fuzz box helped a bit but it didn't make the acoustic guitar any easier to play. When it came to choose my 'O' Level subjects at the end of the 3rd year there was no room on my schedule for music lessons, so what little I was learning there dried up completely. I did learn a bit more simply by working stuff out for myself. And school did come in useful in the end. During my final year, when I should have been studying on my own for my 'A' Levels I spent all my time in the woodwork shop building my own electric guitar (I worked later on that I had spent more time doing this than I had on any one of my exam subjects). I was able to buy the hardware and electronics as and when I could afford them and without my parents knowing what I was up to. The school didn't seem to care so long as I wasn't making a nuisance of myself when I wasn't "proper" lessons. The finished instrument was brought home at the end of the year as a "fait accompli" and there was nothing my parents could do about it. Besides I was about to leave home to go to University where I could finally be my own person. In a way, I think all the obstacles that school and my parents put in the way to me learning about the kind of music and wanted to listen to and play, actually made me more determined to succeed in learning how to play, write songs and form a band. Back in the 70s pop and rock music was still seen as being rebellious, and IMO learning about it at school would have sucked all the fun out of it. I did learn some useful music theory from school music lessons, but I leant just as much by dissecting the terrible sheet music I would occasionally buy of my favourite songs, and I learnt even more in the early 80s when, in order to submit my songs to the PRS and earn some royalties from the radio play they were getting, it was necessary to score out all the major musical themes to allow me to register the works. Because I am almost completely self-taught I think it made me see music in a completely different way to those who had lessons. By the time I was 16 I was writing my own songs and music using all sorts of non-mainstream (even by rock standards) influences, which meant that when post-punk and with it the DIY fringes came along my band's songs and recordings fitted right in. This was brought home in a rather depressing way some 15 years ago when I was in a band that also included a couple of teachers. On several occasions our band were asked to provide entertainment during the intervals of various school music evenings and "battle of the bands" competitions. Whilst the standard of musicianship from the kids was far above what myself or my class-mates were able to achieve at a similar age, there was absolutely no signs of any real creativity. Just endless cover versions done as far as possible to the same arrangement as that on the best-known recording. Not one performer played a song of their own composition. Had there been something like this when I was at school (there wasn't as that sort of thing was definitely not to be encouraged) my band would have been up there inflicting our weird music performed on our weird and home-made instruments, to the befuddlement of all. I'm sure everyone (except us) would have hated it and we would have been told as much, but we wouldn't have cared, and if anything it would have made us even more determined to follow out own path. For all the slagging off that I give to my school musical education and the obstacles my parents put in my way to playing music and using instruments that weren't of the classical tradition, I am completely sure that for me it was an advantage, and although it was massively difficult at the time, in retrospect, it has made me the musician and songwriter that I am now, and I am glad that it has.

It's definitely the best track on the Faust VI album:

These two were custom made for me based on various demo models: This one was an-demo model that I bough second hand an then got Simon Farmer at Gus to completely refurbish to my specification. Other than the colour change it didn't need too much doing to it as it was one of the basses I'd used as a starting point for spec of my black one: The 4-string fretless that is now owned by HappyJack was a straight ex-demo model.

Completely and utterly this. For the custom builds I have ordered, I went to luthiers who were already making something along the lines of what I was after in terms of overall design, and then told them how I wanted the instrument to look, feel, play and sound. I left everything else up to the luthier. The only technical specifications I asked for was a locking vibrato system on one of the guitars I had made.

Remorse? None whatsoever. I've had two custom guitars and two basses made especially for me, I also own a custom bass that wasn't built for me but has been back to the person who made it for modifications to make it more suitable for my use. Of all of these only one has been sold and that's because the musical project it was built for is now over and given the sorts of bands I'm playing with at the moment, and I'm likely to be playing with for the foreseeable future, I can't see myself using it for anything more than noodling at home, which IMO is a waste of a musical instrument, so it has been moved on to someone who will use it. The money is being used to fund a new custom bass for one of my current musical projects.

That wouldn't have sounded out of place in John Peel's show any time between 1979 and 1983. The only thing pushing the boundaries (slightly) is the use of technology that allows their guitarist to also do the bass and synth parts at the same time as the guitar.

IMO there's an important distinction between music that's new to you and music that is genuinely something different to what has been done before. In my previous post I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that most of the "new" bands that I'm currently enjoying owe a lot to music I enjoyed in my youth. Also I think that the tendency to start actively listening music that I wasn't perviously interested in as I get older has a lot to do with subliminal influencing through hearing it in film and TV soundtracks etc. Conversely there's a lot of bands that only still listen to simply because I bought the records when I was young and foolish, and if I heard them for the first time today I wouldn't be remotely interested.

Where does that go on the kick drum and how does it work? The web site is very light on info.

Unless you need to wind the strings down the post to get a decent break angle over the nut you shouldn't need more than 1½ to 2 turns for the string to hold in place.

So long as the responsiveness of the pads has been adjusted to suit the drummer and the correct sounds picked for the style of the band, then IME this entirely down to "hearing with your eyes". A band I was in previously went through various line-ups one without a drummer and two with drummers using different electronic kits. However in all three cases the drum sounds were exactly the same samples triggered either by a sequencer or by the drummer. Interestingly the lineup which most people thought had the "best" drums was the one whose kit looked like conventional acoustic drums, but had been damped to the point where there was no more acoustic sound that your typical electronic drum pads and the heads were fitted with piezo transducers for triggering the actual drum sounds we used.

I think you've misunderstood what I was trying to say. Bad music will still be bad when it's loud but it might be a lot more exciting at volume rather than at normal home listening level. It's the same as being able to "feel" the bass. It doesn't make the music/sound any better, but it does make it feel/sound more exciting even when it isn't really.

For me it's up there with the "everything sounds better when it's loud" phenomenon. The real test of any music is if it still sounds good when it's quiet.

I've never understood this. Based on when I had a traditional bass rig, in order to be able to "feel" the sound I would have had to turn it up so far that I would have completely drowned out the rest of the band. For me, if I'm playing music that I like that's all the "vibe" I need to get into the performance.

@Ashdown Engineering haven't been on here since the middle of June, so I don't think tagging them in this thread is going to achieve much. I think since you've already returned the earbuds (did you return the tooth too?) and got a refund that's probably it. However, if that had been me, I would have been in touch with the carrier to let them know what one of their customers had been sending using their services, my local environmental health department, as well as trading standards.

You don't even need to use an EQ module on the patch. If you are after the same high cut on all your sounds you can make use of the global EQ instead. Even if there is a mic on the cab, the only person who knows for sure that it is being used is the FoH engineer. I'm sure that plenty of PA engineers will put up a mic to keep the bass player happy and then use a DI exclusively for the FoH sound. In the days when I still had a conventional bass rig when I went into the studio I would ask for one of the cabs to be mic'd up, but there was still also a DI from the amp and one direct from the bass itself. And I would never know which of those signals was the one that ended up in the final mix and TBH so long as the bass sounded right for what I had envisaged on the track I really didn't care. IMO the Helix doesn't need to offer a "sim" of any classic studio EQ. I'd be perfectly happy with a standard 4-band parametric as found on just about any modern digital desk.

It's seems strange how bass amps and cabs are still being advertised using "name endorsees" when they are the ones least likely to actually using them as anything other than on-stage props. Live and in the studio the bass sound will most likely be DI'd direct from the instrument and processed through compressors and EQ far superior to anything found in a typical bass rig. Those who need a conventional rig the most - weekend warriors playing covers in pubs with a vocal-only PA get ignored.

Yes I get that, but making fun of a serious comment detracts from the thread IMO. Again not suitable conduct, IMO, from someone who is supposed to be a moderator.

The sale of real tortoiseshell was banned in 1973 so in that case yes. For the rest of it, IMO, you're just being contentious for the sake of it which is not conduct befitting a moderator. Personally if I'd received that package, I'd be making a much bigger fuss then the OP appears to be doing. As well as complaining to whoever sent that (Ashdown?) I'd have also been straight on to the company that delivered the parcel to let them know what they had been carrying as well as my local environmental health department to let them know what I had been sent.