MrTaff

No where near expert & I doubt even in another 20 years I'll be anything more than average.

Doesn't sound like it's worth the hassle of fixing, the rod is probably knackered as well, I'd try returning it but at the end of the day it's your word against his if he claims you damaged it

This almost killed the band I'm with now, singer & guitarist wanted a new PA with each of us paying 25%, what happened in the end was the singer, guitarist & drummer paid a third each and when one of them leaves the other 2 buy him out at market value, I don't sing and don't use the PA so refused to pay which didn't go well but meh.

I started just doing the songs I wanted to play but if I was starting again I'd be transcribing songs from lots of different genres and paying more attention to how the bass line was constructed, learning from any many different bassists lines as possible seems more worthwhile to me.

I love white basses but I voted cherry & maple simply because white just doesn't fit everywhere.

I haven't played the Mexican Classic but I've played the rest & my impression was the same as yours, I loved the 62 and the American Standard but there's no way I could justify the price of buying two of them when the two VM's I bought came too less than half the price of one American Standard.  The MIM was nothing special, build quality wasn't any better than the VM and the Ducan Designed pickups in the VM sounded better.

I don't use other peoples gear & I don't let people use mine, I can pretty much guarantee that none of the people who've asked me would replace damaged gear without threats of broken bones & I don't want to be responsible for replacing somebodies £1k rig.

No exceptions.

I like the sound of Roto steels, but they kill my fingers & frets.

That sound like way too much hassle for me, I'd have no problem not doing the gig.

I must be doing it wrong, I've never charged per mile, just a set price per gig

Just another scam to get more money out of us, if they did it, my car won't be going far

It does look misaligned, might be a good idea to post a new pic from straight on.

Don't forget to check your setup afterwards, I went from Roto steels to Prosteels and needed to tweak the truss rod because of the tension difference, you might find the intonation needs tweaking as well.

For recording I use new strings, by a month they've lost the brightness you get with new strings, but as gary mac said, it depends on the music & tone you're going for.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1337021336' post='1654208']
Fair enough, I'd probably be ok at 170 bpm with a pick, not sure about fingers.
[/quote]

I can't get near 16ths at 170 with a pick, 3 fingers I can still only do quick bursts.

With lots of metal in drop tunings, you generally end up with riffs that pedal off the open note, something like this

[CODE]
Eb:|--00---8-7-5-0---00---6-5-3-0---00---4-3-1-0---0-4-3-1
[/CODE]

that's from Aggression by Sadus and is a mixture of 8ths & 16ths at 170bpm, for this one you could maybe play the Eb flat on the B string, don't know about you but I struggle to play 16ths at that speed on one string, without doing it over 2 strings.

or Danger Wildman by The Devil Wears Prada in drop D

[CODE]
A:|-8--10-7--7-8---5-7-8—5-4--8--10-7--7-8--5-7-8—5-4-5-|
D:|--00----00----00------00-------00----00---00------00-------|
[/CODE]

My life would be much simpler if it was just a matter of positions, but there are so many other riffs like this in Eb/Drop D/C etc that staying in BEADG isn't an option.

They might be there, but they wont always be reachable, a standard tuned 5 simply in't going to work in every situation.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1337016403' post='1654089']
Why would you drop tune a fiver for Eb? One of it's plus points is the ability to play in Eb without retuning.
[/quote]

Because a 5 string doesn't have the open Eb,Ab,Db,Gb which some songs need.

Might as well be the Rush England Tour, one in Scotland, nothing in Wales or Ireland

I've had an SR505 and Jazz V tuned down to Eb with 45-130 strings, but I prefer light strings and don't mind some buzz and clank so while it worked fine for me, others might find it too floppy.

I've never considered 2mm that low, it's only .4mm lower than Fender recommends, I couldn't imagine playing with 8mm, I don't think my left hand could handle playing fast lines with the action that high.

2mm is lower enough that I can play softly and get a clean tone or dig in and get the clankly tone you hear in metal.

I set mine 2mm at the 12th & 0.3mm relief, which I'd consider medium action but I can't go any lower without shimming the neck. I don't find 10-15 any harder to fret than anywhere else but I'm using fairly low tension strings which help.

I've got a zoom b2, obviously it doesn't sound as good as single pedals but I mainly use it for effects where I can't justify buying a pedal just for part of a song like the chorus and flanger effects.

Drum machine work fine for practising but make sure you turn it on and turn down the volume before you turn on the amp, it's default volume is LOUD and you can't change the default volume, I blew a tweeter by forgetting. With my P basses the drum machine at volume 1 or 2 is about the same level as the bass and the default volume is around 25 so you can imagine how easy it would be to damage a speaker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zU1LNg-6aQ

I can't sing so it wouldn't work anyway, but I've never thought of doing it like it.