Silvia Bluejay

While I see your point, and did think about that when I started playing bass (recently enough for a decent choice of lefty models to be on the market), I absolutely didn't want a repeat of the 'being taught to write with the wrong hand' debacle that happened to me over 50 years ago. Whenever I have to write something, I have to mentally prepare and make an effort, because my right hand always feels a bit like it's fighting against me. (Yes I know, it's the 'wiring' in my brain, not my hand, that's the problem.) My handwriting is also crap, and I am infinitely grateful for the existence of computer keyboards (even if they themselves are right-hand-optimised!). I resent having to go through all that, while I could have been happily writing using the hand that feels correct to me. I don't think I'd have been able to learn to play bass at all, if I had been forced to play right-handed by myself, by others or by the circumstances. Is it true that many hollowbodies have neck dive? My Hofner violin has some, despite having those tiny machine heads that are half made of plastic. Both my acoustic bass guitars have neck dive as well. Is it not the case that more weight in the non-hollow bit of the body is necessary to avoid the body being too light compared to the neck/headstock? (Genuine question, I hope my reasoning is flawed!)

Very interesting thread! It gives us a glimpse of what's behind our avatars, besides our shared love of music and bass in particular. I was a (mostly) freelance technical translator, copy-editor and proofreader for around 25 years. That also included multiple-foreign-language website and applications testing. I then got bored and fed up with the direction taken by the industry, so I re-trained as pro PR/social media person. Around the same time, I joined Basschat. I also started my music photoblog, and through that was offered to write for BGM and later BPM. I consider myself semi-retired now, and I'm loving being able to gig every weekend as live sound engineer and photographer for @Happy Jack's bands. There are plenty of opportunities to learn new stuff and make yourself useful, no matter what age you are.

Thanks for that! At least it's not faeces-brown like the other 375 I found online. However, my intention would be to buy new, not second hand. And I'm sorry but I don't like that sort of red burst, or that plate with the knobs... This would be a want, not a need, so I can wait until I find the perfect one. Apologies for derailing the thread!

Nah. After visiting NAMM, I've developed a bit of GAS for an Ibanez SR 305 - much cheaper than even the most lowly Rockbass. Ibanez has always been my second favourite guitar maker. The SR line of 5-string basses has the same specs as my Warwicks - 45mm nut width, thin comfortable neck, 34" scale, 16.5mm string spacing at the bridge, a NON-Fendery body shape, a much nicer headstock than Warwick's but still with 3-2 as opposed to 4-1 machine heads, and slightly lighter in weight (although that's not difficult, considering that Warwicks are boat anchors). Except that, erm, there are no lefty models. That being the original reason why I got an entire collection of 5-string Warwicks, but haven't been able to widen my horizon to other 5-string basses. I'm not keen on a custom build, regardless of price. This is my unattainable favourite model, although I would settle for black, or white, or natural if they existed in lefty. Heh.

Too far for us, but those who are within reach should make the effort to go - Sheldon's great. He ran a luthier's seminar throughout the weekend at the LBGS 2018 and I absolutely loved it. There's some footage in my LBGS 2018 blog, but seeing him in person is better!

We keep those Hi-Z inputs as emergency for plugging the double bass (in the rockabilly band) in case of partial or total failure of the regular, highly expensive DB rig we normally use. In our tests, the difference we heard between the two setups is minimal. 😮

Been GASsing for a new bass of late, so I was having a look at specs on websites. When it's given, weight is almost always expressed in pounds, while nut width and string spacing at the bridge are always in millimetres. Fingerboard radius and scale are usually expressed in inches, unless you're Thomann, in which case it's mm again. Pretty damn confusing, whether you grew up metric - as I did - or Imperial.

A quick look at the PDF manual suggests that it's not replaceable, a bit like those in modern laptops and tablets. I imagine it may be possible to swap the battery for a new one if you send the BigHead in for a service, but they don't seem to want the user to do it themselves. If the shop you bought it from doesn't get back to you, try another distributor, such as GAK, Bass Direct or indeed Thomann, and ask whether any spares for the battery exist. They should be happy to answer a general enquiry like that.

Yes, there are quite a few features you can only see if you bring up one channel at a time on screen and navigate through all the tabs, checking that the values entered make sense. But it's still worth it - I don't think we would want to go back to an analogue desk, ever, except in an emergency (for which we are indeed prepared, with a spare, analogue desk!).

Can't help with your last question, I'm afraid, but I just wanted to reassure you. The XR18 usually works fine - the problems come from the operator (don't ask @Happy Jack and me how we know!). Since the instructions and manuals are unadulterated cr@p, and the interface is far from intuitive, it's very easy to press the wrong buttons or forget to press the correct ones. The hardware is usually not at fault, when used correctly. It just takes a lot of patience to get it right, and testing in the rehearsal room will help, but can't be the be-all and end-all. It has happened to us more than once that everything sounded glorious in our home studio, only for the band (and yours truly on the tablet) to have to contend with - for instance - screeches, hisses and horrid feedback of all kinds when set up in a different room. So the saved scenes are always just a starting point, and your sound engineer will have to re-work EVERYTHING according to the particular room you're gigging in. It's a steep learning curve, but worth it.

Thanks @Teebs. I'm sharing on Basschat's accounts. Hope it's recovered quickly.

At the moment I'm more concerned about pubs having to cancel due to panicking punters choosing to stay and drink at home, than to any actual risk to us as the band. Things may change, of course. In the past few weeks the main problems would have been people not feeling like braving the storm to go to the pub, but we've been lucky so far. The official advice is still not to panic.

I must say it would be a scarily expensive wheelbarrow... 😮😉

For a given value of 'hit'...

Right, I had the mini-blog sitting in my Wordpress account, almost but not quite ready for publication, for MONTHS! I've finally remembered it/brought it up to speed - and here it is. Much shorter and less detailed than usual, mostly because I was at the bash only for a couple of hours and missed quite a lot of the day, but at least we've got a formal memento.

... which he recently sold! 🙄

There seems to be a glitch on Basschat's interface that stops FB videos being visible, and also stops me from deleting the links once they are posted. @charic?

We need a link fro Youtube not Facebook. Apparently. BRB!

Paging @Happy Jack!

I use a laptop or my desktop PC, connected to a PJB Bass Buddy and headphones. Yes, I know, that's the no-expense-spared solution. 🙄 On the desktop I've got Best Practice, which is free and OK. On the laptop I've got Phrase Trainer, which was £20 when I bought it and it's far better than BP (although BP will suffice for most uses).

You probably forgot 'Went to music college, graduated with full marks, took it from there' which is what several of my younger friends did, alongside other related freelance jobs such as teaching, luthiery, working at a music store, etc. to cover the gaps.

I'm totally intrigued, and I'm now following this thread.

Yup, we've also learned that P and J basses need their hooks at an angle, like that where your Jazz is hanging from, because of the shape of their headstock.

Ha! But our studio has 24-hour aircon/heating keeping the temperature at 18 degrees, minimal humidity all year. It's also rather handy to be able to pick up any bass you may fancy playing instantly, without rummaging through piles of cases on top of a shelving unit (as was the case - NPI - with some of ours before). YMMV and all that.

Super cool. Welcome to The Other Side Of The Pond, Jeff! 😉😎 Let us know about any queries in General Discussion - there are quite a lot of Basschatters who have been to college and/or teach and have a lot of experience of being or having students in London. And don't forget the double bass section with our own mini-community-within-the-community.