CalJock

It's passive

It seems to me that if the P pickup's working and you don't mind just using that for a while, and if you're happy doing the work on the J pick up yourself, that risking getting a poorly finished replacement would be silly, especially when it might only be a really minor problem with wiring to begin with. Also that is one hell of a nice looking instrument!

I really liked the sound of the 50's P I tried when looking at P basses a while back, but I didn't like the neck personally (but then I like baseball bat necks so I'm probably disqualified from judging). I would say go for the standard and then mod it as required.

Hmmm.... if an overcoat works for muting a trumpet I may invest in a hefty coat for my bass, and maybe a hat for over the scroll, yes I think the "dress-up-your-bass" kit might help, even if it just makes me feel less bad about how little time i've been devoting to it.

Cheers for the advice, I think I'm gonna give a mute combined with somekind of insulated block a go, seeing as how I just found a bunch of carpet and underlay, I figure that I can get some "proper" sound insulating material to go into it as well and hopefully end up with something that stops the complaints

Hey all, just wondered if anyone could offer up some advice. I live in a flat, where there are people in a basement flat below me, and someone in the flat upstairs because of the noise complaints I get when playing at a regular volume I've found that I can't practice the upright at all unless I go to the back of the flat in the middle of the day and play quiet. I got someone to play my bass when I went to the downstairs flat, and it just turns their flat into a bass trap (which explains my noise complaints). I don't really want to upset them more than I have because they've just had a baby and the guy who lives there is a bouncer. Also I went busking the other day and realised that I've lost all my calluses! I wondered if anyone could offer some advice as to either 1) something to stop the upright turning my neighbours flats into bass traps, or 2) a way to harden my calluses without playing at volume. Cheers

Thought I'd mention that Brian Gibson the bassist from Lightning Bolt (not everyone's cup of tea, I know) has his 5 string in 5ths and uses banjo strings for the two lightest strings, not sure if he's tuned up or down from standard though. Might be worth having a look around and seeing what sort of guages he uses for the non-banjo strings, I imagine that the numbers will be floating around online somewhere.

Hey everyone, Just thought i should introduce myself. I'm Calum, from Argyll in Scotland currently living in Brighton in the South East, been playing for 11 years now, and just got my BA in bass. I've played in bands doing punk, jazz, metal, and funk, and I've promoted a bunch of gigs, and briefly ran a label. and now for the gear list [u]Basses[/u] Epiphone Eb-0 in pelham blue with gibson pickup and pots in it. 3/4 Stern double bass [u]two bastardised P's[/u] one is the body of a '51 reissue in butterscotch with the neck from a mike dirnt sig, with the pickup rewound by bernie goodfellow strung with flats, the other (my main bass) is the Neck from the '51 glued into the body from the mike dirnt (vintage white) with an old 70's p-bass pup in it (it's glued cause I smashed it at a gig, it went back together but didn't feel as secure I glued it and now it feels better than it did before) and it has Gluey written on it under the control plate in marker. [u].[/u] [u]Amps[/u] Trace elliot 4x10 combo of some kind it's an oldy though Line6 lowdown 150 [u]Effects[/u] Electro harmonix bass blogger boss ds1 and some old wah Cheers all, happy playing!

Hey all just thought I'd throw my thoughts into the ring. I've spent the past two years promoting shows, managing bands and putting out a couple records as well as playing my own stuff. I also just graduated from uni where my dissertation was on this kind of thing. So hopefully I'm not completely full of crap. The best tips I can think of to help (that I've seen work) are; I think the real key to expanding your fan base and getting recognized outside your group of friends is just to play as well as you can, every time you play. When you do a gig, even if there's only one or two people there, play and perform as well as you can. Growing a band is a battle, you can't win by just sitting there and plotting things out on the internet (although by no means should that kind of thing just be dismissed). Play out of town as much as possible, because then you're always playing to people who haven't seen you, and all it takes is to win one person over, they'll tell their friends and it can grow from there so every time you play in a place you should gain one or two fans (at least) Get good recordings and use them. This i where the internet comes in, get some good quality recordings (but don't spend all your cash doing so) and put the some place for free download, not just streaming. Don't record every song you have, but make sure you've got two or three. I've met a bunch of people who were won over to a new band because they were able to stick the bands stuff on their ipod and listen to it on the bus. Stick the recordings on cd's and send them around, to radio stations online, local, international, whatever just send them around if you've got good songs and recordings someone in some backwoods station will like it and play your stuff. Promote your own shows. It's not hard to do if you have a bit of sense about you and are willing to take the risk financially. Find bands that your friends will like, and that will hopefully pull a bit of a crowd on their own, (depending on the length of the gig you probably want 3 or 4 other bands and at least one of them from out of town) get your friends along so there's some audience and the other bands should (hopefully) bring some as well, and seeing as how you put the bill together fans of one band should like the others, and it creates opportunities for doing gig swaps, and if you're lucky a bit of cash. The problem here is that you might lose a fair bit of cash. I think it could probably all be summed up like this though. Always play and perform to the absolute best of your abilities, and try to create, look for and offer opportunities for music and other musicians. sorry for a bit of long and rant-like post.